Posted on 04/08/2008 9:38:49 PM PDT by Between the Lines
End of the Spear author says God still writing chapters in his life’s story
Re-evaluate mission efforts, Steve Saint tells North American churches
Published: April 10, 2008
CAROLYN NICHOLS
Florida Baptist Witness
Photo by James A. Smith Sr.
Steve Saint stands with Waodani tribesman Mincaye, a man responsible for the murder of his missionary father, Nate Saint. Both spoke March 15 at a missions conference at Calvary Baptist Church in Arcadia.
ARCADIA (FBW)—Steve Saint has spent a lifetime in missions among the Waodani tribe in Ecuador.
Telling an audience in Arcadia the Christian life “is an extreme call to a radical life following a revolutionary leader,” he encouraged North American churches to re-evaluate the effectiveness of their mission efforts in light of the Great Commission’s mandate to make disciples.
Saint spoke March 15 at Calvary Baptist Church in Arcadia during the congregation’s annual Missions Celebration Weekend.
Saint’s father, Nate, a Mission Aviation Fellowship pilot, was killed along with four other missionaries by Waodani tribesmen in 1956. Their story, written by Steve Saint, was told in the 2006 movie, End of the Spear, which was shown at the church the night before Saint spoke.
Only five when his father died, Saint returned to Ecuador two years later with his mother—and was with his aunt and others as they resumed mission work among the Waodani. He compared his work among the tribe to a story that God is writing—a story to which God continues to pen chapters.
“This is God’s story. I just had a front row seat,” Saint said. “He wrote the story and I wrote the book.”
Several of the men who had killed the five missionaries became Christians through the ministry of the Saints’ family members who returned to the tribe. He counts now-elderly tribesmen as elders. Saint and his sister were baptized by them at the same bend in the river where their father was killed.
“Isn’t it incredible what God can do?” Saint asked the crowd.
Surprise guests at the Arcadia event were Waodani tribesman Mincaye—whom Saint calls “grandfather,” and his wife Ompodah. They were visiting in the U.S. to meet the newest of the Saints’ 11 grandchildren, but “were tired and ready to go back to the jungle,” Saint said.
Mincaye told the Mission Celebration participants he did not used to be “a coming after one,” which Saint explained was one who had left his own trail to follow another.
“I did not understand God’s markings. I did not see His trail,” Mincaye said through Saint’s translation. “All of us were not coming after ones. Nobody had come to tell us about this better trail.”
Along with their applause, the crowd was asked to respond to Mincaye’s testimony with a high-pitched hoot, the Waodani version of “amen.”
As Saint told of the chapters God has added in his life’s story, he said he has learned that God, as an author, often surprises His readers with plot twists. He said God is “His own interpreter,” and does not always write the story we anticipate.
“My dad and his friends thought their call was to take the Gospel to the Waodani. Looking at it from 50 years later, I am sure that God did not intend that to be their purpose,” he said. “I am convinced that God intended for my dad and his friends to die to shake up the North American church that had grown apathetic—sleepy—and was not paying attention to God’s call on their lives anymore.”
Steve Saint also would like to shake up the mission efforts of North American churches. He told the Arcadia congregation North American churches still have a role in missions even though the center of Christianity has moved to Asia. The role of the North American churches in missions is dependent on our willingness to “learn to listen and to be humble,” he said.
From his perspective as a product of both Ecuadorian and American cultures, Saint questions the effectiveness of what he called the “short-term missions industry.” He told Florida Baptist Witness in an interview that short-term mission trips “now consume as much Kingdom resources in North America as long term missions, and much of it is feel-good ministry.”
With the goal of making disciples mandated in the Great Commission, North American churches should re-evaluate the eternal benefits of short term missions, Saint said. He compared making disciples to teaching a preschooler how to tie his shoes. Although easier to do it ourselves, “there comes a day when they realize, ‘I am capable. Won’t you teach me to do this?’”
“If making disciples is the goal, how much of that can you do in eight days with one day at the beach and one day shopping?” he asked.
Saint’s own mission endeavor, the Indigenous People’s Technology and Education Center, grew out of the Waodani’s request to “teach us how to do,” he said. Through the center’s work, indigenous people are taught basic principles of evangelism and discipleship along with simple dental and medical care.
“Everyone needs the Gospel in his own culture,” Saint said. “God has not called us to make people like us; God has called us to make people like His Son.”
Saint’s ministry is only one of the local, national and international ministries showcased in the annual Missions Celebration. Along with Florida Baptist Convention agencies, North American Mission Board and International Mission Board, other agencies, including Samaritan’s Purse, Breath of Life Pregnancy Center and Campus Crusade had representatives available to network with church members.
Pastor Scott Wilcoxen told the Witness he wants his congregation, already active in several mission projects, to see “where the rubber hits the road with missions.”
“I want us to be exposed to people on the field doing missions, to the wide scope of opportunities locally and internationally. I want us to have a new appreciation and a new focus on missions,” Wilcoxen said.
With reporting by James A. Smith Sr.
Is this the “Heaven’s Gate” story ???
Heaven’s Gate is a true story about missionaries who were killed when they flew into one of those countries...
The families went later and got many of the tribe saved...
There was a documentry about it several years ago...
Sorry, I have never heard of that. Only Heaven’s gate I know of was the suicide cult from ‘97.
PING.
Sorry wrong name
But same story..
Its been a few years since I read this book
I knew it had something to do with a gate
“Through Gates of Splender”
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0842371524/?tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_6jxp8ufinj_b
Thanks for the info and the link!
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