ADVANCE
SAINT*
knew. What had happened to the girls? Surely they had had time to arrive as the trip should take about 3 days. They had arranged with Da- yuma that they would fly over and let down the telephone in the bucket to her. Where was she, that they couldn’t find her? Several more days went by and Dr. Tidmarsh and Dr. Woods made a trip- to the Curaray area. One day, they heard a terrible scream across the river. They tried unsuccessfully to get the Indians to take them across the river to investi gate. Could it have been Dayuma or one of the other Auca women trying to return to the missionaries and the Aucas were preventing her? Again we wondered just what the outcome of this visit would be. Soon after Dr. Tidmarsh returned to Arajuno he and his wife decided they must come out to Quito for dental work but they did not wish to leave Betty and her little daughter alone with the Indians. So they sent a radio message to Quito asking if I would go to the jungles to stay with her. I went. As the airplane rolled to a stop I said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see three Auca wom en coming down the airstrip.” Little did I know that in less than 42 hours, I would have that very experience.
It was Thursday morning, Septem ber 25th. Betty was h a n g i n g o u t clothes; Valorie was playing; and I was typing a letter to Nate’s and my parents telling them of the Quichua wedding we had attended the day before. Suddenly, I heard Betty call ing, “ Guess what, the women have returned.” A Quichua Indian from the Curaray had come to bring us the news. “ Good morning,” Betty greeted him. “Why have you come?” “ For nothing,” he replied. “ Didn’t you even bring us any news about the Aucas?” “ Oh, yes, they have come and have brought others with them. They have stopped down at the Nushino River to bathe and asked me to come on ahead to tell you.” Betty, Valorie, and I changed our shoes immediately and set out to meet them. We hadn’t gone far when we heard someone singing in English with an Auca accent, “ Jesus Loves Me.” It was Dayuma fol lowed by M and M and 7 others. One of them was one of the wives of George, the Auca man who was on the beach with the five fellows. She had brought her baby, George’s son. We learned later that at the time George was killed — less than two years ago, she followed tribal custom and strangled her baby daughter with a vine and buried her with her father. For the next two days Betty poured questions to Dayuma. We learned that they hadn’t been seen from the plane because they were so tired that they had stopped at a place a few hours walk short of the Auca houses and had sent Mankamu on ahead, perhaps to throw in the proverbial hat. It was she that Betty had seen from the plane. Dayuma saw her mother again after 12 years. The Aucas told her they would like Betty and Rachel to come in — that they never knew anyone truly wanted to be their friends. One man, Dabu, told them that he cried when he heard that someone had killed the five for eigners. He said he waited a while and then went to the beach and felled a tree so that no more foreigners could come in and be killed. They also told of killing another foreigner just re cently, Mr. Tremblay from Canada. We also asked about Maruja, the little Quichua girl who had been taken captive when her husband was killed at the time Mankamu and Mintaka came out last November. We were happy to hear that they
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Dayuma, led to the Lord by Rachel Saint, sister of Nate, has seen her mother for the first time in 12 years. found her there with the Aucas and brought her back to her people on the Curaray. Betty asked, did M and M tell their people that the foreigners do not eat people? “Yes,” they said, “What in the world did you think they (the Aucas) would eat anyone for—they think you are the people eaters.” “Were these 7 new ones afraid to come with you?” “No,” Da yuma said, “ They came shouting with glee.” “ Did the Aucas understand the gestures that the men used to make from the plane?” Betty asked. “Yes, they understood and they followed as far as the Curaray but they said, ‘The airplane goes way beyond where the hills look blue. We will never be able to reach there.’ So they turned around and went home.” Dayuma said, “ I began to teach them right away. When I spoke thus, two of them cried. The next day one woman came to me again and said, ‘Tell me more about your God.’ ” Let’s join together in asking Him to make each future step perfectly clear to those through whom He is working to reach the Aucas with the Gospel. 13
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Mintaka listened as Dayuma sang Auca language: "Jesus Loves Me.
*Marj Saint is the widow of Nate Saint, Mis- sionary Aviation Fellowship pilot who lost his life with the four other martyred men. Mrs. Saint is stationed at HCJB, Quito, Ecuador. January will be the anniversary of the first Auca advance. Watch for further information in The King's Business. DECEMBER, 1958
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