CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
September 1955
September 1955 was the month in which Operation Auca really started, the month in which the Lord began to weave five separate threads into a single glowing fabric for His own Glory. Five men with widely differing personalities had come to Ecuador from the eastern United States, the West Coast, and the Midwestern States. Representing three different "faith-missions," these men and their wives were one in their common belief in the Bible as the literal and supernatural and perfect word from God to man. Christ said "Go ye"; their answer was "Lord, send me."
The missionaries who were about to join forces in Operation Auca had made several moves. After the flood it had been decided to rebuild Shandia, keep it as the main station of this area, and build outstations. The technique of maintaining a number of outstations is particularly important in the Oriente because the Indians in this part of the world, as already pointed out, do not congregate in large villages, but are scattered in small groups throughout large areas of the jungle.
It was agreed that an outstation should be established in Puyupungu. Jim and Ed and Pete had visited this little settlement of Quichuas on a survey trip down the Bobonaza River in August, 1953. There they had met Atanasio, the chief who had invited them to establish a school for his children. "Because of God, will you not stay?" he had asked. "We need you very much. I have-let's see-thirteen, fourteen, and another one, yes, fifteen children. No one has taught them. They want to learn to see paper. I have some orphans too in my house. Will you not come?"
Usually it is an uphill struggle to win the confidence of the people in a new area. Here, however, was not only an open door, but an outright invitation. The three men saw it as the answer to their prayer for enlarged borders. So plans were made. The McCullys moved to Shandia to begin their study of Quichua, and Pete, who was still single, was chosen to stay and help them learn the language and get established. Jim and I decided it was God's time for us to marry so that we could, together, open the station at Puyupungu.
Thus it was that Jim and I arrived there in November, 1953, with all our worldly goods in four canoes. After greeting us with much backslapping, handshaking, and laughter, the men carried the white man's incredible quantity of equipment up the high bank where Atanasio's two wives and throng of children waited expectantly.
The building of the house and airstrip did not take all of Jim's time. Together we began having meetings for the Indians, telling them in their own language the most wonderful story in the world, that of the Son of God who had come to earth and paid the price of man's sin with his own blood. The recognition of God's great love dawned slowly in the Indian mind. But one day we rejoiced as Atanasio said to Jim, "I am very old. Perhaps too old to understand well. But it seems to me your words are true. I will die in your words."
Meanwhile, the McCullys were making good progress learning the language in Shandia. Pete Fleming had built himself a little shack near their bamboo house, and took meals with them. He wrote in his diary: "It is surprising what joy and pleasure I had in building my little two-room house. I really got a kick out of it, and though it took only four or five days, I could hardly wait to move in. It is very comfortable and it is pure luxury to have a place to myself, a bed, a desk, and chair where I will not be under observation. Best of all, it aids in leading a disciplined life, things are in a convenient place, and privacy for prayer is now possible. I have begun again to add to my file system on the New Testament, a thing I haven't done since I left the U.S. I am happy inside myself to be getting things done in an orderly way again. There is no question that it is the way I was meant to live, with regular bedtime, evenings free for study, and a full hour's devotional time in the morning."
During a three-month period the missionaries made weekly flights over the Auca settlement that they called "Terminal City," dropping a line with gifts (such as this kettle). Occasionally they pulled up Auca gifts tied to the line. Nate Saint displays a feathered headdress.
OVERLEAF One of the palm-thatched Auca houses, photographed during a gift-drop. About sixty feet long, it can house from twenty to fifty people. Surrounding smaller shelters are for Auca pet animals.
A friendly beachhead in hostile Auca territory: After months of preparation, the missionaries landed on a Curaray River sandbar that they named "Palm Beach." On Tuesday, January 3, 1956, Nate Saint made five flights from Arajuno-ferrying in Ed McCully, Jim Elliot, Roger Youderian, as well as supplies. While Nate was flying, the others built a shelter thirty feet up an ironwood tree (RGH7). On the last flight that day, Nate flew over "Terminal City" and shouted in the Auca language: "Come tomorrow to the Curaray."
On Wednesday the missionaries began the period of waiting for a visit from the Aucas. They fished, read, and studied their notebooks of Auca phrases.
LEFT Jim, Roj, and Nate return to Palm Beach after chopping down trees that might endanger the plane on landings and take-offs.
BELOW Jim holds up a catfish. RIGHT "Except for forty-seven billion insects of every sort this place is a little paradise," wrote Nate in his diary. Here, with Time magazine, he takes what he called his "hydraulic siesta" to escape the insects.
On Thursday the waiting continued. During the day Nate Saint took the plane up several times, circled above Palm Beach, and gunned the engine to help pinpoint their location for the Aucas. ABOVE. Two missionaries rest in the shade of the beach house. RIGHT. During the period of waiting, the men felt that they were being watched by unseen eyes, but they got no sight of "neighbors." Jim Elliot, Auca notebook in hand, stands in the shallow river and shouts words of welcome into the jungle in the hope that Aucas might be lurking there.
Arms outstretched, Ed McCuIIy demonstrates both by gesture and by word to any hidden observers that he and the other emissaries from the hated outside world are waiting in friendship.
RIGHT The missionaries' efforts were rewarded at 11:15 Friday morning, when three Aucas stepped out of the jungle and met their first white friends. This is the man of the trio, nicknamed "George" on the spot. He wears the Auca earmark, a piece of balsa wood through the lobes, and a skein of red wool-a gift from Roger.
LEFT Phrase book in hand, Pete Fleming points out the different parts of the model plane to "George," who is sitting in characteristic Auca fashion. Later, the missionaries tried to explain to him the need for the Aucas to cut down trees and build a permanent airstrip near their village. This area would not be imperiled, as is Palm Beach, by floodwaters.
ABOVE "George" enjoys his first hamburger while Roger rubs him with insect repellent. "George's" biggest thrill came from his plane ride with Nate over his Auca village. From the moment he climbed into the plane, he shouted out the side-aping the missionaries, who, during the giftdrops, called to the Aucas below.
BELOW The older of the two women in the Auca party stayed longer than her companions. She sat by the fire during the evening, chattering volubly to Roger, undisturbed by the fact that he could not follow her conversation. That night she settled down beside the fire, but evidently left early in the morning; when the men got up, her fire was still burning. Nate Saint, who made still pictures on the beach, also made a short film in color of his experiences. An Auca woman, Dayuma, who escaped from her tribe several years ago, and now lives on a hacienda outside Auca territory, has seen this film. She believes that the older woman is her mother's younger sister. She does not recognize the other two members of the Auca trio.
The youngest of the visiting Aucas was promptly dubbed "Delilah" by the missionaries. At the end of the day she stalked down the beach. "George" called to her, but, failing to stop her, followed her into the forest.
"George" stands beside the model plane that the missionaries had made the insignia of Operation Auca. He now has the model with him in his Auca settlement, and when pilots of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship fly over the Indian houses, he rushes out and waves the little plane. In the background is Nate Saint's Piper Cruiser.
As Pete watched the McCullys become oriented in the work, he began thinking more specifically about his own future. And about his fiancee Olive Ainslie, a slim and beautiful girl, with dark eyebrows in striking contrast to lighter hair and blue eyes. They had become engaged in an exchange of letters while he was in the jungle. With typical candor this quiet, studious man wondered if there were any conflict between his coming marriage and his "call" to the Aucas?
"Last night Nate and I talked a long time about the Auca problem," he wrote. "Strangely enough, I do not feel my coming marriage will prohibit me from being eligible to help in efforts to reach them. I feel that if pushed to it, Olive would rather have me die after we had lived together than to indefinitely postpone our wedding on the possibility that something fatal might happen. Our life has become one, and I do not feel that God will separate us in our discernment of the will of God."
In June, 1954, Pete felt free to return to the United States to marry Olive. After Pete's departure Jim and I moved back to Shandia with Ed and Marilou McCully. Puyupungu having been established as an outstation, we arranged for future visitation and teaching sessions. Shandia, with a school, medical clinic, and small store, was considered our permanent base of operations.
We all agreed that Jim and I could take the responsibilities of the Shandia station, so Ed and Marilou began to consider a move to an area of their own-another place where the Gospel had not been carried. The McCullys knew of Arajuno, the abandoned Shell Oil Company base on the very edge of Auca territory. In survey flights over the area, Ed had estimated the Quichua Indian population to be somewhere around one hundred. Why not take advantage of the excellent airstrip which the company had built, and move in there for a while to preach to these Indians? The runway would need only a day's work at the most to clear it of grass, and the gravel base would be as good as new. Arajuno, one of several Shell Company projects aimed at finding oil in the area, had been fabulously expensive. A small city had been hacked out of the forest; roads had been built; a hotel and tennis courts, bakery, and even a narrow-gauge railroad had been included in the project. Now, abandoned since 1949, the buildings had been claimed by the rot and ruin of the jungle. However, some useful materials might be salvaged. The idea of opening a station at Arajuno seemed a good one.
Ed began visiting Arajuno each weekend, flying over with Nate on Friday. Ed visited the Indians' homes and conducted meetings for them on Saturday and Sunday. The welcome he received encouraged him to build a simple house, using the foundations of one of the abandoned Shell Oil buildings and boards salvaged from round about. Finally when Ed decided to stay on full time at Arajuno, he moved Marilou and the two children to their "new" quarters. Marilou soon had an attractive home fixed up-bright curtains at the screened windows, a "sofa" made of a pile of salvaged bricks covered with a mattress and a sheet of plastic, pictures on the bamboo walls, and colorful Ecuadorian rugs on the cement slab floor. Nate Saint spent several nights rigging up a burglar-alarm system and an electric fence, for the McCullys and their co-workers on other stations were fully aware of the dangers of living near the Aucas. The Arajuno River forms the western boundary of the Auca territory and the new mission station was on the Auca side of the river. It was the very site where the Shell Oil employees had been killed some years before. Such sporadic raids, with the Aucas darting from the jungle to kill swiftly and disappear again, had made the Aucas fearful and fascinating to their Quichua neighbors.
The Quichuas never allowed the McCullys to forget the possibility of a visit from the Aucas. The Quichuas refused to remain after four o'clock on that side of the Arajuno River. "This is the Auca part," they would say. Every so often rumors would spread around that Auca footprints had been found near the house, or that the grass was pressed down, indicating that Aucas had been lying there, spying on the foreigners.
The electric fence was set up a good thirty yards from the house, beyond accurate spear-throwing range, and Ed and Marilou always kept a pistol or gun handy. "Even though we don't think they're around," Ed said, "it gives you a good feeling to know that the fence is buzzing. With our lights on in the house at night we'd make a good target!"
Thus it was that the Lord had placed Ed and Marilou in the strategic spot that was to become the base of Operation Auca.
Meanwhile, Pete had returned from the United States to Quito with his bride, Olive. They spent a year in the mountains while she learned Spanish and he translated Scriptures into Quichua, spoke at Indian gatherings, and refreshed his own knowledge of Spanish. In the fall of 1955, Pete and Olive came to the Oriente to begin Indian work together at Puyupungu, where they settled in the little thatched house which Jim and I had built. Pete began again to teach the Indians there, slowly and carefully, reviewing the things they had learned before, leading them into new truths.
Olive's initiation into jungle life included a spectacular display by the active volcano Sangay, visible from the living room at Puyupungu. "At night," Pete wrote, "it looks like a huge bonfire out of which shoot flares in a long graceful arc landing a couple of thou sand feet down the mountainside. With the binoculars we could see individual balls of fire burst and spray out all over. It was a real show. Clouds of steam coming from the lava on the snow would momentarily blot out the pyrotechnic display, only to have it clear and start over again."
Their hearts were sometimes saddened by the drunken behavior of many of the Indians at a fiesta. The results of such fiestas can be imagined-husbands beating their wives; pitiful naked children left to find their own place to sleep at night while parents stagger about until dead drunk. On one occasion a drunken mother rolled on her two-week-old baby, smothering it. An Indian will sometimes attempt to find his way home through the dark forest, usually ending up asleep on the muddy trail, waking hours later to find huge scavenger beetles digging under his legs in an attempt to bury him.
But there were signs, too, that the Gospel message was getting through to these sons of the jungle. Pete's journal records: "Today the angels are rejoicing over Puyupungu, and so are we. How faithful God is. This morning a number of Indians decided for Christ. I felt led to speak on baptism since I had noted several misunderstandings while I listened to Indians talk. So after speaking from the story of Philip and the eunuch, I tried to explain simply and clearly the difference between faith and baptism. After an early fight with squalling babies the attention was excellent and I felt the Spirit moving in hearts, so asked for a show of hands after carefully explaining what a decision for Christ would involve. A number of hands showed-Tito, Benito, Pascual, and others. A number more began to put up their hands when Alejo broke out from the back telling them that it would mean giving up drinking and living immorally. Some of the hands went down at that. I closed in prayer, inviting those who were really repentant to go into the back room of the school where I could deal more carefully with them. Twelve came. We encouraged and exhorted them and arranged for a believers' meeting on Friday afternoon. Several others are very close. What joy! This is what we came here for.
"At twenty-six years how good God has been and how full and blessed His ways. How continually I thank God for bringing me here, almost overcoming the impossible and pushing me out. I felt 'thrust out' and how grateful I am for God's impelling."
In September 1955, "God's impelling" moved five pioneering missionary families to crystallize their plans of months and years into common action. Truly they were being "thrust out" to carry the Word of God to the Aucas. The McCullys, in the station at Arajuno, provided the vanguard. Jim and I were in Shandia. The Flemings were in Puyupungu. Roger Youderian and his family had returned from their outstation at Wambimi and were again helping the Drowns at Macuma. Nate Saint with his little yellow plane and Marj at the radio remained at Shell Mera, their permanent base at the hub of these outlying jungle stations.