One day last week during Bible-time, we read a story about Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully and Roger Youdarian who were missionaries in Ecuador in the 1950s. After I read it and we talked about it, I told the kids I had a video about these guys called "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" that we could watch after school.
I couldn't wait. We watched it right away.
Although I had watched the movie twice before, I kept getting names and faces mixed up and had a hard time following it. It is narrated by Nate Saint's son and the 5 missionaries' wives. Now that I had just read the story to the kids, it all made a lot more sense to watch and I was able to get so much more out of it.
Oh, the love these men and women lived out. I will try to make the story short. In the 1950s, five young, growing families all lived at separate bases in Ecuador. At some point, the men decided they wanted to reach a tribe of people known for their relentless killing of each other. One would kill another, so a family member of the one killed would kill the killer. On and on it went. The children of the tribe knew they would grow up to be speared to death or spear someone else to live. No one wanted to have anything to do with them...except these Jesus-following men from the States.
They started by using a small aircraft to drop "gifts" to the tribe and eventually landed on a small beach and befriended 3 of the tribe members. One day two of those tribe members got in trouble for going off alone, so they lied and said it was the foreigners' fault. This, of course, angered the tribe and some of the men decided to kill the foreigners.
By this time the missionaries had a fort built up in a tree and had been on this small beach for 3 or 4 days. They had taken guns with them, but when the tribesmen came to kill them, they didn't even try to use them. Why?
The missionaries knew the men from the tribe were not ready to die because they would go to hell. But they knew they were ready and were willing to die in their place. They also knew that if they shot and killed the tribe members, it would be practically impossible to ever reach them for Jesus.
The result...the tribe was reached by a couple of the widows who stayed to continue the work. Fifty plus years later Nate Saint's son and family have been back to Ecuador to minister to the natives and teach them how to spread the Word to others. One of the men responsible for the killings is actually called grandfather by Mr. Saint's grandson.
What an example of love and forgiveness! What an example of dying to self! What a legacy to leave for the generations after them!
If you want to learn more, here is the website for the documentary: http://www.beyondthegatesthemovie.com/
UPDATE: "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" is a documentary. Karen reminded me of "At the End of the Spear" which is movie format of the events. I haven't seen it so can't say if it's okay for kids to watch or not. I'll be looking into it for myself, though. Thanks, Karen, for the reminder.
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4 comments:
I loved where the "grandpaw" came to the US and went back and told his wife that you just drive up to people's houses and they give you food out of their window, and how we were all fat and the wife told him he got fat in America. To see the humor that is the same as ours is really cool. oh, and him in the bathtubs!
That's funny....I just came across that book yesterday packed away in an old box and set it aside to read. I've heard it's a great one....I love Elizabeth Elliott's story, so I'm sure I'll love this one!
Wow...with the background piano music playing as I'm reading your passage I was incredibly moved...tears actually. It's amazing the love Christs' people have, especially these brave men. Oh how I hope I'd have the same resolve as they do if I was in their shoes. We will most definitely look this stuff up! THanks Jenny!
this sounds a lot like the end of the spear movie that came out about 2 years ago. Could it be a remake of the movie?
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