S P E C I A L M I S S I O N A R Y F E A T U R E :
THE AUCA By MARJ
T h a n k s be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” At this Christmas sea son, our hearts rejoice in the victories which He has wrought. Just a few weeks ago 10 Aucas came walking out of the jungles to the mission station known as Arajuno. There were 7 women and 3 boys. “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” But before going further, let’s go back a bit and see how the Lord has brought this about. I never feel right about telling the Auca story without mentioning that missionaries of Ecua dor and their friends started praying for these Indians some 35 or 40 years ago. We are no doubt reaping some of the harvest of those prayers right to day. During these many years, no visible progress was made until 1955. There is no need at this time, I’m sure, to repeat the story of the four months of concentrated effort which began with the locating of the Auca houses from the air and ended with the deaths of five young missionary men the story that we know as “ Operation Auca.” During the next two years, mission aries continued this effort by keeping open the mission station on the edge of Auca territory, Arajuno. Gift flights
were made over the Auca houses and people around the world continued to ask the Lord for a friendly contact with these Indians that in His time, they might have an opportunity to know of the Lord Jesus Christ. In November of 1957 the long- awaited news came. A Quichua In dian brought the word to Gwen Tid- marsh and Betty Elliot in Arajuno that two Auca women were at the Quichua Indian houses on the Cura- ray River about 6 hours away by trail. Betty Elliot left with the Quichuas immediately to meet the Auca women and found one of them to be the older woman who came to Palm Beach in January, 1956 when the five men were there. There, two women have lived with Betty for the past 10 months. In June of this year, they joined Rachel Saint and the Auca girl Dayuma. Dayuma has been living out of the tribe for about 12 years. These two missionary women, with the three Aucas as informants, have been giving themselves to the study of the Auca language. During recent months the two Auca women, Mintaka and Mankamu had been talking much about their return home to their people. Dayuma had said that she would like to go with them. She didn’t make up her mind
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MRS. MARJ SAINT
for sure until two months ago when the other two, M and M, as we call them, decided the day had come for them to return. They had explained to Betty before that they must return during Capoc Season, for they had told their people if they did not return during this season, they would know they were dead. The season was al most over. So early the next morning, Dayuma left her little boy in Rachel’s care and she joined the other two Auca women and Betty as they flew back to Arajuno from the Wycliffe base. Soon after landing, the three Aucas, heavily loaded with gifts for their people, 3 pup dogs, and food for themselves and the dogs set out on the trail for the Auca houses. As the Tidmarshes and Betty walked back to the house Gwen said, “ I wonder if we will ever see them again.” I guess this thought went through each of our minds as we heard the word that they had gone, but as Betty Elliot wrote us, “We have entrusted them into the Lord’s care and that is a pretty secure place to be.” Five days later, Danny Derr, one of the Missionary Aviation pilots, and Betty flew over the Auca houses. Betty thought she saw Mankamu waving vigorously and pointing in one direction, but of course, going over at 80 or 90 miles per hour, Betty could not be sure. They flew around and around but saw no signs of the other women. Three days later Betty and Johnny Keenan flew over again, but they saw no signs of anyone they THE KING'S BUSINESS
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Missionary Aviation Fellowship pilots, making regular flights over the Auca village, took this low altitude photograph recently, showing "civilized" type fence possibly copied from that surrounding a mission station. The woman under the eaves of the main house holds a streamer from a gift just dropped. The man bending over is eating a gift hamburger, and indicating with a native basket that they desire a "bucket drop."
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