Meeting Heroes

The other day we were walking through town and saw one of the parents of a former patient.  This man, named Mincaye, happens to be the grandson of another Mincaye, the famous Waorani who speared Nate Saint and now is a sold out Christian and missionary to other Waorani.  Mincaye Jr is writing a book about the Waorani but doesn't have a camera to take pictures for his book.  We gladly offered to use our camera, and so on Monday night we had the great privelege of having Mincaye, Dewey, and Kimo, the three surviving killers turned on-fire Christians to our house for dinner.  It was amazing to hear about their history and life, to know the number of "kills" they each had before knowing Jesus and how He dramatically changed their lives and way of thinking almost over night.

                                                                        MINCAYE
Dewey commented how one seed sown by the five martyred missionaries became a huge harvest throughout the Waorani people.  The three we had to dinner were convinced that their people would have killed each other off if the missionaries and Rachel Saint hadn't shared the gospel with them.

                                                                             DEWEY
The men said their greatest struggle now is reaching their youth who are so distracted by outside sources like music, television, and western culture; this sounds too familiar to us and reaching our youth in the states.

                                                                               KIMO
None of the men know their true age only the season they were born in: "during the time of the mangoes", for example.

It was fun hearing the men's stories told in Waorani (then translated to Spanish for us).  Caleb wanted to hear a story about a jungle animal.  We were expecting a nice, calm story about a monkey, but Mincaye told us a Waorani legend complete with blood, headless humans, and cannibalism; not quite a three year old bed time story, but the way the Waorani shared their history with each other before they had a written language.

Before the men headed back to Mincaye Jr's house they showed us their blowgun skills by shooting our blowgun at a stuffed monkey.  Caleb loved it, but Jael wasn't sure she liked her animal being shot at.

  MINCAYE SHOWING CALEB HOW TO LOAD THE BLOWGUN
It's exciting to see how God is working now in the lives of Mincaye Jr. and his family.  He is a gifted evangelist and is filled with the Holy Spirit.  We would be honored if the Lord would have us be involved in some way with the ministry that is going on among the Waorani people.