CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Breaking Jungle Barriers
Among the tribes where Christ had not yet been named were the Atshuaras, first cousins of the Jivaros but their deadly enemies. Roger prayed often for an opening in this group and talked it over with Nate, who had shared his concern for some time. Frank and another missionary had tried to contact them five years before. On that occasion, Frank and his colleague had almost reached the house of the chief when they were met by a boy carrying a verbal message: "If you do not turn around at once, you will be killed." The reputation of the chief was such that there was no doubt about the accuracy of the message. The missionaries turned around.
Roger finally decided to move closer to the Atshuaras. On June 5, 1954, he left Macuma and traveled southeast two days on foot to a place called Wambimi, where the Shell Oil Company had abandoned an airstrip and a few dilapidated houses.
"This location is particularly important as a possible doorway [to the Atshuaras]," he wrote. "It was marvelous how the Lord worked for us in preparing this outstation. He enabled us to erect a new building 20 by 60 feet, with a permanent roof to augment the small houses already available on the spot. He protected us in those eleven days from snakes (1 stepped on one), scorpions, tarantulas, injury, complications from nails, from roofs caving in while dismantling old buildings, et cetera."
The airstrip needed only a little grass-cutting, and was ready for Nate's plane to land. Nate recorded the subsequent events on magnetic tape: "We flew in Barb and the two children, and they set up housekeeping, started language study and literacy work among the local Jivaros as well as evangelism. While Roj was down there, as any missionary does, he carried on medical ministry. One of the sicknesses that plagues the Jivaro is leishmaniasis. It affects nasal cavity, nose and the back of the throat, the roof of the mouth. It's a hideous disease that is long and drawn out, eventually kills them and, of course, is very shameful-it disfigures the face terribly and the Indians dread it with a passionate dread. Several years ago missionary doctors ran down a cure, a drug called 'Repodral.' Roj had some with him and he scored a couple of notable cures among the local Jivaros. Despite the continual running feuds that go on between the Jivaros and Atshuaras, as well as within both groups, there is some liaison on the trail and word of the cures got across the line to the Atshuaras. One of the chiefs over there in the Atshuara country was called Santiaku (a chief in this case as in most jungle situations is just a Number One man in a given small area; Jivaros and Atshuaras don't group up; they're scattered all over Timbuktu and the fellow that's the strongest or the most feared in a small area is a chief). The chief, Santiaku, had come down with this dread disease, and despite fear and happenings of the past, he finally showed up at Wambimi. And, of course, it was a milestone and a cause for great rejoicing because it was an answer to prayer. Roj did help him; the Repodral helped his nose condition and he showed up again later and invited Roj to go back to his house. Of course, this is what everybody had been waiting for, but as in the case of the spider and the fly, Roj wasn't going to accept this offer carelessly. So he said to Santiaku, 'Okay, I'll come over to visit you at your house if you come and take me over there.' And so, good enough, the escort did come and escorted Roj Youderian, Frank Drown, and another missionary into Atshuara country.
"Somewhere along the way Frank coughed and the Atshuaras stopped right there; that was as far as they were going to go because they are deathly afraid of catching cold. Apparently it's a cold or grippe-what we call flu-that kills them off because they haven't much resistance to it, the disease never having touched their group while the generation was younger. It was with great difficulty that Frank convinced them that he was just clearing his throat. Frank says that that night when they were camping along the trail somewhere he felt a tickle in his throat again and he just didn't know what in the world to do, so he feigned that he had business off in the bush and got away from them and cleared his throat, fearing, of course, that he might break up the whole expedition by coughing and being heard by the Atshuaras.
"When they got to Santiaku's place it turned out to be a great big house, about three times the size of the long Jivaro houses. Roj says it was just big enough to put a basketball floor inside. The Atshuaras speak a somewhat different dialect but understand Jivaro, their facial features are different, and the women have narrow hips, instead of wide hips like Jivaro women. When they got there, Frank started to give them the Gospel in Jivaro, telling them of the love of Christ and how he had died for us. It was a question of giving these Indians a story from scratch that they had never before heard any suggestion of. Frank talked until he was hoarse and exhausted. They had a little wind-up phonograph with them and they played Gospel recordings made in the Jivaro language and they would play these until Frank got his voice back and then the Atshuaras would say: All right now, Panchu (an affectionate Spanish nickname for Frank), tell us more.' And for three days, the Atshuaras went on like that-just sitting around, listening to the story of Christ, a most amazing opportunity and Santiaku showed real interest.
"Because of the isolation of the Atshuaras and the tense situation with the neighboring Jivaros, it seemed as though the key to getting in there and actually doing some good was air communication. Frank suggested right off the bat that they build themselves an airstrip. It seems to me that it was a really bold stroke of genius and I'm sure I wouldn't have had the faith to suggest it the very first time. The idea took hold-the Lord blessed the suggestion and brought it to fruition, because they started cleaning an airstrip; the missionaries, while they were there, showed them where they could cut down the trees in line with their manioc patches, so that they would have some natural approaches to take advantage of the forest they had already cleared. Then the missionaries retired.
"After several months, we thought it time to encourage the Atshuaras, so we flew down over there to see how they were coming along and found that they had cleared about 100 yards of the jungle floor for an airstrip. But 300 feet with trees standing all around it, trees that grow to 100, maybe 120 or 150 feet, is hardly an airstrip. So we dropped them a couple of pieces of cloth to encourage them, and then we went away again and a few more months went by.
"The other day we went down and had a look again. And to our disappointment we found that the direction of the strip in the forest was such that it was lining right up with the great big house, and, of course, it's not ideal to have a house sitting right on one end of a strip in the approach. And the work didn't seem to have gone very farlooked like they needed help at this point. So we went back and had a short council of war and Roj said: `Well, it sounds to me like they need help and I think I should go.' He had a little hand-crank radio, but he didn't have enough provisions. He really hadn't contemplated such a trip at all. Well, I guess he had a machete. But the need was there, the opportunity was there, and he could be there within two days' walk. He decided to try to get some Jivaro to help him carry the radio and guide him over the trail from Wambimi to the Atshuara country.
"We left Roj at Wambimi on a Wednesday and on Thursday we listened on the radio for him. We thought it might just be that he would have set it up along the trail somewhere or maybe he was still in Wambimi. We didn't hear from him on Thursday, Friday, or Satur day. Monday we thought surely we'd hear from him-that he'd be with the Atshuaras and surely be on the air. We still didn't hear a word from him and there he was with no other missionary, but with those unconverted Jivaros who were known to be rascals. And, I guess many of them out there have killed-they're killers and some have survived killings-not the choicest group to have for company on a dangerous trail. At any rate, we decided on Monday when we didn't hear from him that we ought to go in and check on him and make sure he was all right. So we assembled provisions, notes to drop him, food, and medicine. And we took out the air-to-ground telephone. Frank and I went together in the airplane. We flew with the door off, of course, so we could operate the telephone if necessary. We got down there and when I first saw the strip my heart sank. In the first place, because I couldn't see right off the bat that anything at all had happened to it-and I knew that if Roj had gotten there, something would have happened to that strip, because Roj just doesn't have anything in hand very long before something happens to it-especially if it needs something to happen to it. Then I started looking around for a white shirt. We looked for several anxious minutes before we finally distinguished him down there on the airstrip. I'll tell you for sure, I hadn't realized how anxious I was about his safety until that moment when I looked for him and the thing was in the balance-either yes or no. Then I realized how concerned we had been about him on the trail, with just a Jivaro guide and a few provisions. There are snakes out there. But we saw him and our hearts were very rejoiced by seeing him.
"We made a couple of low passes over the field. First we flew low over and throttled back the engine to quiet it down and I shouted down to Roj to ask him to get the Indians off the strip, that we had some stuff to drop to him. He heard us perfectly and cleared the Indians out of the way. We made about four runs, dropping the food and some axheads and cloth to the Indians as gifts for them. We needed to know what the situation was down there, so we pulled up and put out the telephone on a double-wire cable, using the spiraling-line technique. We reeled out about 1,500 feet of telephone cable and then started to circle. The telephone on that long line duplicated our circling, then slowly slid toward the center and began to drop. Finally it hovered, drifting around in a slightly unruly way, its horizontal velocity perhaps six or eight miles an hour, while we above were circling at sixty miles an hour. With a little trial and error and compensating for the drift, we were able to finally get the phone down close to Roger. I heard Frank's voice saying: `Hello, Roj; hello Roj,' and I knew that we had contact with him down there.
"Frank talked with Roj for about ten minutes there on the phone, getting data from him. And then he apparently had all the information he needed and we started to pull up to put tension on the line. Meanwhile, Roj had tied his mailsack on to the cable-his outgoing mail and a note to his wife-and turned the phone loose. It went soaring up just about vertically, cleared all trees and we had it trailing behind us on the end of 1,500 feet of wire that we then had to reel in. We waved good-bye to Roj and shoved off for Wambimi."
When Nate landed again in Wambimi, Frank informed him that Roger had asked for a landing on the following Friday. "It's impossible!" said Nate. "The strip won't be ready. But then," he added, "I guess that's not my department. I'd better get in there as requested and then decide whether or not the strip is landable."
Roger had also explained over the ground-to-air telephone that he needed medicine. The Atshuaras had contracted the flu from a group of soldiers who had passed through. This accounted for Roger's not having a radio. The Jivaro who had promised to carry it in had gotten wind of the sickness among the Atshuaras, and knowing how deadly flu can be, refused to go near the place.
"Friday came along and I was getting kind of keyed up about this business of inaugurating a new field," Nate continued on the tape recorder. "It isn't child's play; it isn't a Sunday school picnic, as they say; it is a very serious business, where you have to do your best possible calculating and double checking on everything and then trusting the Lord-go in and do your duty.
"Friday morning woke up, as they say in Spanish, raining. By noontime we knew that it was out of the question for the day; the field would be wet anyway, and we can't add mud to the other unavoidable hazards of such an operation, so we canceled out for that day. We took it that it was God's indication that it was not the day to go and we left it pending for the next day. The next morning we made the preparations and Frank and I flew down to Wambimi after lunch. Frank got out and we unloaded the extra cans of gasoline and I took off alone with a very limited supply of gas. The airplane was completely stripped, with even the right seat taken out, so that it was as light as you could possibly get and have enough gasoline to be safe. I had a safe reserve-perhaps an hour and a half of gasoline aboard, and the round trip over to Santiaku's place and back would have been about forty minutes; so I had a hundred percent reserve."
Taking off, Nate headed for a little river halfway between the Macuma River and the Pastaza, which was the only landmark for Santiaku's place. When he found it, figuring he must be south of the spot, he turned north, scanning the horizon near and far in search of the little island in the sea of green. Nothing. Suddenly, just below him, he saw a little house-of the square stockade style, but without a chacra [an agricultural clearing in the forest].
"That's strange," thought Nate. "Maybe it belongs to some Indian who's just killed somebody and is lying low here for a while. Probably his chacra is off somewhere else, to confuse the enemy."
Mystified, he kept on. Ah-there it was! He called in to Marj on the radio:
"56 Henry-I'll be over Jimmy's place in two minutes. 56 Henry-I'll be over Jimmy's place in two minutes. Over." Since Santiaku is a form of the Spanish name for James, they had nicknamed the spot for secrecy.
"Lo and behold," Nate's record continued, "when I got over it two minutes later, there was no airstrip there! Looked just like his place, but no strip. That was a little disconcerting, because I didn't have a great deal of gas along, so I flew a little farther north and climbed on up, gaining altitude, trying to decide what I should do. I decided I'd better beat a track for Wambimi. Landed there around four-thirty. I hadn't been in a hurry before, because I wanted to get to Jimmy's place late in the afternoon when the air is cool and buoyant. It's steadier for this type of operation. Frank was a little surprised to see me back so soon. I described the house I'd seen and he recognized it as one they'd passed on the trail to Santiaku's. He passed me about five gallons of gas, and I took off, heading due east, picked up the little river and turned south."
Nate's blue eyes squinted through the plexiglass. Visibility that day was about a hundred miles, and "you can almost imagine you see steamship smoke on the horizon," but in all that expanse there was not a sign of life.
"I went south," he continued. "I went farther south. I was really beginning to make bets that I had never seen anything before, and goodness, I thought, there's no percentage in this! About that time I stumbled onto a house that was on a river bank, well stockaded, and the way that house was situated you just wouldn't see it unless you flew directly over it, that's all. Tucked down there in the forest, it was made differently from the other houses that I'd seen, Quichua or Jivaro. I didn't feel that I was exactly in a friendly neighborhood. I decided that the Lord's hand must be in this somehow (I was farther south than I had ever flown on survey)."
Even though Nate by this time was greatly concerned about finding Roger, he looked this new house over carefully and made a mental note about its location, "because they would need to hear the Gospel, too, way out there in their isolated places. You feel convinced that it is the will of the Lord that we do everything possible, that each Indian have an opportunity to know of the grace of God, and to hear that Name that is above all other names.
"So I went on. I felt buoyed up by the challenge of the very isolation of these people and the challenge to help other missionaries to get the Gospel to them, so the risk involved seemed to be offset and justified by the spiritual challenge of the situation."
Nate kept on flying till he figured the gas load was getting down. Then he switched on his transmitter:
"56 Henry to Shell Mera. I've looked up and down the river. Can't find Jimmy's place. I'm turning around now, heading upstream, gaining altitude. Do you read, Shell Mera? Over."
"Okay, Okay," came Marj's answer, and Nate started looking for smoke on the horizon, for surely he must be in Atshuara country, and if Roj had heard he'd get a smudge going.
Presently he saw it-there, apparently to the southwest, was a column of smoke. But it seemed to be in the wrong direction. Was his compass off? Or was it that he was not as well oriented as he had thought he was? The situation seemed incongruous, but, Nate thought, "once in a while you get in a situation like that, and the answer, when it comes, is a kind of surprise. So with that in mind, and with the fact also that where there's smoke there's fire, and where there's fire there are people, I decided to trust the Lord and head out across the stuff and see what in the world was producing that smoke. When I got there, I was well rewarded, but not in the way I'd expected.
"Down a steep bank that had been cleared, in a little hidden river, set in the trees, there was a little flat place. And down in the flat place, sunken way down deep, was a big house, with rounded ends, and Indians all over the clearing." Again Nate made a mental record for future use. After a quick look, with gas getting low, "I rolled out of the turn and started climbing and looked to the left, and, I'll be switched, there was a great big house, bigger than the one on the bank of the river, tucked down in there just off to one side. I just don't know how in the world it is that you can't see something until you're right on it. It's like hunting needles in a haystack."
Nate then started climbing, still circling. "I thought it just possible that if I got up really high, where I could look down into those little barrels of isolated pockets of mankind," he said, "I just might see some more interesting things. I was all eyes and quite excited over these finds and thrilled to find myself completely thrust into the arms of the Almighty, because down there there's no question at all about that. If that old engine had quit up there, God alone could have saved me. I might just as well admit it frankly right here; I don't like to fly over stuff like that and I have to have a pretty good reason to be over it without a good position-check and a good river to identify my position by. But these are people for whom Christ died, and you have to find them before you can take the Gospel to them, so I was happy to have stumbled on them.
"I had one last look around before turning over to Wambimi and on that inspection I noticed a little blemish, off to the east, and I thought I could afford to fly a minute or two and see what it turned into. And so I did. And within two minutes I could distinguish a house and then a few seconds later I could see a clearing; some solid earth behind some trees, some tall trees that indicated that it was Jimmy's place, and there, completely hidden behind those tall trees, was the runway. I finally realized I'd had all this trouble finding the place because the late afternoon sun was hitting the low ridges at a different angle than I had been used to on previous trips over the area. Anyway, when I saw that clearing I got on the radio, but quick, and started down. That old airplane really let down in a hurry and when I looked over at the vertical speed indicator I was clocking about 1,500 feet a minute. I was spiraling down at a good clip, reporting in to Shell, getting confirmation of the position, circling over the clearing and having a look-a heart-saddening look-at the strip. It just wasn't what you would describe as an airstrip at all. My heart sank. I knew Roj needed to get out of there, because I know the way he works; he never spares himself. He'd been in there a couple of weeks almost and I knew he would be a wreck and needing badly to get clear of the place. So I was anxious to do my best, consistent with safety and our responsibility to MAF and the other folks that MAF serves.
"While I circled back I shook my head and said to myself, audibly: 'No, that just is no good; it's just impossible.' Nevertheless, I figured I owed Roj a better look, so I came by low a time or two, and one time I was about to cut the engine and yell down to Roj and tell him: 'I'm sorry; it's no soap.' But I went on by and took another look at it. He had it nicely marked with bandage material. He had 50 yards on the lead end toward the big house marked off, and then he had a line with the words 'WHEELS' on it. I knew I could touch down from where the 'WHEELS' sign was. Down at the far end he had marked off 250 yards. Then I got to thinking that I can't just say 'no' on a hunch; but I can, too. Sometimes a hunch saves a fellow's life, when a slide-rule says 'yes' and a hunch says 'no.' So I thought: 'Well, the airplane is light; about 250 yards more or less of strip; maybe I should try one approach.' The air certainly was quite steady and I thought that if I could get down there closer it might look different. So, I prepared to buzz the field, let down steeply over the trees, and down over the roof of Santiaku's house, going about a hundred miles an hour. When I got down in there, there was one tree sticking out along the edge of the strip, and I said to myself as though someone could hear: 'Roj, man, this thing does have wings sticking out,' and I pulled up and got to thinking the problem over. The surface looked all right; I trusted Roj on that; I know he's careful about making sure that there are no soft spots; he's been through two other strip inaugurations with me. That is to say, he's gone ahead to prepare and check the ground, so I felt confident.
"There wasn't much time left; I was well down in gas again; so, 'Here goes,' I said to myself, 'maybe I can get by that tree.' And then the thought came to me that I might not be able to get out of there later. I figured that between the two of us, with the Indians, we could fell enough trees in a couple of days to get out of there. The radio was working on the airplane; I could tell Marj where we were; I told Barb that Roj was okay. 'Okay,' I called in quickly, 'preparing to land at Santiaku's place.'
" 1 reeled the antenna in, slowed the plane down, and put it in the approach toward the trees. As I cleared the trees, I took it into a very steep sideslip, pulled the flaps into full position, and cleared Santiaku's house by about 15 to 20 feet. As I measured the situation, I wasn't measuring just the tree sticking out but the whole thing, seeing everything at once. As a matter of fact, I didn't even see that tree; at least, I wasn't conscious of it. In a situation like that a pilot's subconscious drives him pretty much. It's a kind of automatic pilot that takes over because you haven't time to think out individual problems. They had been thought out while I was circling above, thinking through objectively and I'd decided that I could go in there safely and, as an oldtimer said, from there on 'the seat of your pants guides you.'
"I went on in there and I slipped that plane just as steep as she'd slip-a pretty solid forty-five miles an hour; I straightened out just over the 50-yard rough stretch, plunked the wheels down just beyond the 'WHEELS' sign and got stopped in a little over half of the 250 yards that was available.
"I thanked God first of all for my being on the ground safe and sound. Naturally, the first thing you do in a situation like that is to get the trailing antenna out and transmit the news of the successful arrival without accident or incident to Marj and other loved ones and colleagues who are listening on their radios prayerfully. But this time I didn't. It never came to mind; there were too many things happening there too fast.
"Roj came running up and said, 'Have you got any medicine?' 'Yes,' I answered; 'it's in here,' and I tossed him the sack. I had it all bundled up ready to throw out of the plane. There wasn't any 'Hello, I'm glad to see you' or 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume' sort of stuff. Roj was haggard; he had a week's beard; a dirty tee-shirt, ripped full of holes; he was a really pitiful sight; emaciated. He was at the bundle, tooth and nail, taking that stuff out. Then he started shouting at the top of his lungs-voice almost breaking-to the Indians down the strip, barking orders. I've never seen Roj behave quite like that. I know that he can snap at people when things are tight, but in this case I didn't know quite what to make of the whole situation, so I grabbed him kind of firmly by the arm and said: 'Slow down now, Roj; slow down; we've got time.' He looked up out of those eyes and said, 'We haven't got time; we haven't got time.' So I didn't argue with him. He handed me two bottles of penicillin and said: 'Here, shake these,' so I did. He was barking orders at the Indians and I thought to myself, 'My goodness, how on earth can these people think he's a friend when he talks to them like that?'
"The first thing I knew, everyone and his brother were getting shots. It was soon evident that just everybody was sick with grippe. Some of them looked as though they were ready to die right there while we were working with the medicines. I did what I could to help Roj. Santiaku was sitting on a log, stoop-shouldered, looking sick, painted up 'fit to kill,' doing his best to look like a chief, but very, very sick. Roj told me while he was 'shooting' that one of the chiefs had already died the week before. When he got there he had shot all the worst cases and they recovered and this was the next batch of light cases that were getting worse and worse and the people-well, you can imagine how they felt without any medical help.
"We had two little bottles of penicillin. How precious those bottles were, standing between life and death. When Roj threw down the first bottle, I said: 'Take it and try to see if there isn't another drop in it.' Mothers would shove their little bare-bottomed babies toward Roj. He'd give them a swipe with a cotton swab of alcohol. It was just a tiny bottle that Roj might so easily upset because his hand was shaking like a leaf. He'd holler out at the Indians: 'Now, don't move,' and everybody just obeyed his orders. He was the chief in that outfit, at the moment, the real master of the situation. There was no question about it."
Roj peered into the faces of the Indians as they came along. The graver cases got the medicine. He looked across the clearing, and there coming out of the forest was Tysha, a close Atshuara friend. The Indians had tried to save his life by carrying him out to an army base, but the river was too great an obstacle for him in his weak condition. He arrived in time to get the last drop of penicillin from Roj's needle. "Praise the Lord," said Roj, "it's unbelievable, but here he is, and this will probably save his life!"
Roj straightened up for the first time, looked at Nate, and smiled. The strain was off his shoulders. Nate looked at his watch-just a few minutes before their deadline for getting out of there. While Roj walked toward the plane, now at long last relaxed and at ease, Nate ran over and offered his hand to the bewildered chief. "He didn't know what to do with it, but I just grabbed his and started talking English. They'd understand as much of that as of Spanish. 'So long, glad to have known you fellows,' I said, and headed for the plane."
Roj was shaking his head, smiling. "Well, God is certainly in this thing."
Nate took off alone to satisfy himself that he could get out with the heavier load, and then came back in to pick up Roger. In the plane on the way to Wambimi, Roj told how the work on the strip had been hindered by sickness; how, because of the sickness, his Indian carrier had refused to bring the radio, and how he had worked on the strip himself for lack of anyone else to do it. At one point an Indian had shouted at him: "Watch out! There's a snake by your foot! Don't move!" Roj froze, and there, not two feet away from his foot, lay a bushmaster, coiled to strike. The Indian grabbed a stick. "Nothing doing-that's too short!" yelled Roj. With the words "God help me" on his lips, Roj slashed his machete at the snake's head, cutting it off cleanly.
"You can't imagine how I prayed that you wouldn't make it on Friday, as we had originally planned," said Roj. "Then Saturday I prayed you would get here, and began to wonder if you'd make it. It got to be four o'clock, and no plane. I was getting pretty discouraged. Finally, there it was. We heard it coming, all right, but no-it was turning away! I just died a thousand deaths out on that field. I was really shot. After working all day in the rain on Friday, straining every muscle to get it done, and then straining our ears all day Saturday, well ... then half an hour later, we heard you again. Again, instead of growing louder, the sound faded away. The Indians tore down to the chacra, and saw the plane disappearing. This was it. I decided to call it a day, and gathered the Indians together for a meeting and a little Gospel teaching. We had just started when the Indians yelled that the plane was coming back. Some said, 'No, you're hearing it with your heart!' But soon we saw it. Man, you can't imagine what it does to a guy to see this little yellow job coming in over the trees!"
These two men, imbued with the Christian pioneering spirit of the first century, using the tools of the twentieth, had pushed back the boundaries of their faith one more step. Not only Roger and Nate, but also Jim, Pete, and Ed were missionary pioneers-always looking to the regions beyond immediate horizons. Just over the distant ridges were the Aucas. "One of these days we're going to spot those boys," Jim Elliot had said, "and from then on they'll be marked men!"