From Martyrdom to Grace
Fifty years ago, five devoted missionaries lost their lives for the gospel. As a new movie about their sacrifice hits theaters, missionary son Steve Saint says their deaths were not in vain.
By Greg Asimakoupolos

 
Steve Saint now works among the Waodani people who killed his dad and four other missionaries.
Image from Every Tribe Entertainment
Five decades ago this January, the lifeless bodies of five young missionaries were found floating in a remote Ecuadorian river. It was a discovery that shocked the Christian world. An attempt to befriend the most savage tribe in South America for the sake of sharing the gospel had resulted in the most grisly scenario imaginable.

After months of flying over the jungle where the feared Waodani lived, Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, and Pete Fleming were convinced their frequent bucket-drops of gifts had cleared the way for peaceful contact.

On January 6, 1956, the five missionaries landed on a sandbar in the Curaray River. They were delighted that three Waodani, a man and two women, appeared out of the jungle and spent the day with them, apparently friendly and without animosity or fear. But two days later the five missionaries were ambushed and speared to death, victims of a people group the other South American tribes called the Aucas (which meant savages).

All of the martyrs became household names. The story of their tragic deaths resulted in an unprecedented interest in cross-cultural evangelism. Within a few months, as many as 1,000 students from Christian colleges across America applied to missionary agencies. Tertullian's ancient axiom found new meaning—the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church.

Within two years of the tragedy the very people who had speared the missionaries to death had become followers of Jesus. Rachel Saint, the sister of one of the martyred missionaries, won the hearts of the Waodani by living with them.

Steve Saint, Nate's son, was only 5 the month his father died. Still, Steve recalls the memorial service as if it occurred yesterday.

"It was a very somber service but there wasn't uncontrolled grief," Steve says. "My mother and the other wives were noticeably restrained. I was impressed by their ability to see what had taken place as part of God's mysterious plan."

That plan is no less observable half a century later, thanks to two major projects focusing on the story. In October, Fox Home Entertainment released the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor on DVD, an adaptation of widow Elisabeth Elliot's best-selling book Through the Gates of Splendor. End of the Spear (www.endofthespear.com), a full-length film dramatizing the events surrounding the five missionaries' deaths, arrives in 1,200 theaters on January 20.

For Steve Saint, who returned to Ecuador with his family 12 years ago to live with the Waodani, looking back on his father's death is a source of gratitude, not bitterness.

"When people have asked me through the years if I have been able to forgive the men who were responsible for my father's death, I have never wavered in my response," he says. "I always say no. I haven't forgiven them because I never blamed them. God gave me the ability to see my dad's dying as part of a divine plan."

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine.
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January/February 2006, Vol. 44, No. 1, 18