In Memoriam : The Five
The love of Christ you dared to prove Needs be through life or through death. Unafraid you went at the Saviour’s call Trusting Him fully in all that He sayeth. God chose the best for such a task And that’s why He chose you . . . Men of strength, of courage unfailing; Unfaltering faith to carry you through. The path you’ve led marks a guide for us The courage you’ve shown lights our way. In simple faith for strength we ask As, too, His love we seek to convey. — M a r jo r ie L arso n , HCJB, Q u it o , E c u a d o r . Expendable for Christ were these— the brave; Though life was dear as to men everywhere; But theirs were eyes that saw be yond the grave The City with foundations, gleam ing, fair. They were the sacrifice upon the fire, Held by their love, not bound with earthly cord; Nor faltered they whene’er the flame rose higher — An offering well pleasing to the Lord. No waste was this: these precious, poured-out lives; Not vain the shattered alabaster box; Nor lost the prayers of broken hearted wives: This is the key the heathen heart unlocks! Though dead, they speak to us today in accents strong: “Do not delay; go reap where we have sown; Soon comes the night; you may not labor long; Ere Christ returns — claim Aucas for His own!” — B e t t y B r u e c h e r t . 14
The five who died are left to right: Roger Youderian, 31, Sumatra, Mont., Montana State College graduate, paratrooper in Normandy and Germany, 2 children, from Gospel Missionary Union; Nate Saint, 32, Huntingdon Valley, Pa., Air Corps during World War II, Wheaton graduate, 3 children, in Ecuador since 1948 with Missionary Aviation Fellowship, flew 6,300 jungle flights; Edward McCully, 28, Milwaukee, Wis., Wheaton graduate, 2 years law at Marquette, graduate Biola School of Missionary
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"When passing through the gates of pearly splendour,
S hortly before Missionary Pilot Nate Saint flew with four fellow missionaries to a lonely sand bar alongside a jungle river, he wrote a letter that tells a little of what was in the hearts of the five young martyrs. “Would that we could comprehend the lot of these Stone Age people who live in mortal fear of ambush on the jungle trail . . . who think all men in the world are killers like themselves. If God would grant us the vision, the word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that now seem so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ.” And with a dedication of purpose like this the five flew into the jungle. It wasn’t a hasty, ill-planned venture. The tribe had been studied for years and during the last part of 1955 Saint flew repeated missions over Auca territory, dropping gifts. After awhile the Indians responded with the friendly gesture of returning gifts in the airplane drop bucket (one of the gifts from the Indians was a parrot that is now a pet of 5-year-old Stephen Saint). Mission observers speculate the friendliness may have been on the part of younger members of the tribe while the murders were perpe trated by the older diehards led by their witch doctors. After the burial of the five a mission plane again dropped gifts to the Aucas who took the gifts and waved back vigorously.
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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