Mincaye

            The past two weeks have consisted mostly of classes in I-Dent, I-Med, and I-See taught by Danny Alonso, a fellow Gringo from the United States.  “Gringo” is a term to describe white folks, particularly north Americans.  It’s not really derogatory, just a description.  Danny is a little less Gringo than the rest of us because he comes from a Cuban background and has spoken Spanglish…that’s right, since a young age.  We’ve also done a little work for Galo at his new house where he’ll be moving in soon, mostly weeding the ground of boulders and other similarly sized rocks.  More than once we joked if he would like some dirt with his rocks. 

            Last weekend we went to a neighborhood in town called “Nuevo Amanecer”, which means “New Dawn”.  This neighborhood contains a mix of people from all over that came to the land and settled without buying it when the Communist president came into power.  Although this was in fact legal, this commune type neighborhood is rather disorganized for a lack of city planning and was settled mostly by poorer folks.  Last Saturday, we brought the I-See program to the people to screen whether they needed glasses to improve their vision.  We didn’t bring the glasses intentionally so that we would be welcomed back today.  We were able to meet a good number of people and identify many who would benefit from corrective lenses. 

            On Sunday, I was able to play piano for hymns in church.  Sandi and I sang a verse of “Cuan Grande es El”, or “How Great Thou Art” in English before the congregation joined in with Spanish.  It appears that all of the hymns were directly translated over to this hymnal, the numbers even matched up.  In the afternoon, we took the 25 cent bus to the nearby city of Puyo, where we walked around the city for a while.  We found a Quichua craft store where I bought a blow gun…that’s right.  We spent at least an hour and a half that night shooting foam “monkeys” with it out of “trees”. 

            Monday and Tuesday of this past week were spent in classes, particularly in I-Dent, which should be a blast, or rather a drill and a pair of pliers.  Wednesday we began training as usual to get a phone call shortly after from Galo’s wife that Mincaye was at Galo’s house across town looking for him.  If you have heard of the “Operation Auca” story, Mincaye is one of the warriors who killed Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, and the other 3 missionaries on Palm Beach in 1956.  Mincaye is probably the most joyous people I have met.  Later that day, I was talking with Filipe, one of Mincaye’s sons who also speaks Spanish.  I asked him, “has Mincaye also been so full of joy?”.  He said “no”, before Mincaye decided to walk God’s trail, he was filled with hate and murdered many people.  Shortly after the 5 missionaries died, their wives went in to Huaorani territory to tell the people about God’s love for them through Jesus.  Their wives and families knew that God’s love for them was too great for them to live in bitterness and resentment of those who killed their husbands and fathers.  Just as these 5 missionaries died for the Huaorani, Jesus had died for all of them.  Many of the Huaorani decided to also walk God’s trail, and all of this Huaorani tribe gave up their culture of murder, with a 70% homicide rate.

            Mincaye came out of the jungle with his son Filipe and his wife because he had a dream that something bad had happened to Steve, which, if you read my earlier post, it indeed had.  We were able to Skype Steve so that Mincaye and Steve could talk.  Mincaye also said that he needed several supplies, and a new house, after his old house was burnt down by a Huaorani member that is incensed because of his connection with foreigners like Steve.  We ate lunch with Mincaye on Wednesday in our normal lunch restaurant, where he managed to consume a good deal of the chocolate portion of Boice’s 18^th birthday cake.  After his second piece, he simply held his spoon above his bowl as he coyly waited for more chocolate.  I think we were all on the same page about that.  He gave us Huaorani names, as is custom when a foreigner comes into a village.  Boice and Sandi were given names of birds; mine is best written as Tangka, which means a hard stone.  Mincaye and family left to Felipe’s house for the rest of the day, while we celebrated Boice’s birthday by fishing in the town of Rio Negro and grilling our rainbow trout at Galo’s place.

            Friday morning Mincaye, his wife, and Felipe and his wife came over I-TEC to spend some time here.  Boice and I were cutting the grass near the airstrip, which means we were using machetes to slice through all sorts of things.  We can see why so many people cut down the rainforest, it’s fun!  When Mincaye and family arrived, Mincaye and Felipe came out to help us work outside.  After lunch at the usual place with our guests, we were able to take Mincaye out for ice cream.  We’d heard about how much Mincaye loves ice cream, and it was truly a pleasure to have this old peaceful warrior with huge holes in his earlobes eating ice cream with us.

            I am thoroughly enjoying what we’ve been learning about missions in our time here thus far.  One of the things we’ve talked about is writing back to supporters.  I’ve heard that missionaries never give their supporters what they want to hear, and I don’t expect to myself.  In our time thus far, we’ve definitely been doing fewer outreaches than I had expected.  Although we are likely to do more and more as time goes on, it’s still not quite what I expected.  We are doing far more learning than anything else, which I now see as a huge blessing.  I’ve wanted to be a missionary since I was probably 11 or so and even more when I was 12 and heard the story about “Operation Auca” and the 5 missionaries mentioned above.  Now I think I’m beginning to find a vision of how to do it better. 

Yes, I’d still like to be a missionary doctor.  Medical care provides a good door opener with people to get to know them and later, share the Gospel.  There are many examples of missionaries in Shell, some of whom actually seem to be doing missions.  I went to get my hair cut on Thursday, (I didn’t remember communicating that I wanted the same haircut as the new army recruits) and talked with the hairdresser, who was surprised to find out that there are missionaries living in Shell.  That indicates to me that something is wrong by the way missions is approached, at least here.  Many of the missionaries in Shell live in “Gringolandia”, a gated community where they live separate from the people.  Many have lived here for many years and hardly do any missionary work anymore but simply run a business.  One of the questions I’ve been trying to figure out is, then, what makes a missionary?

            I believe that every Christian is and should be a missionary.  In the end of the book of Matthew, we find this passage:  “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’” 

The popular missions paradigm of our time is to go to a country and give something then leave.  Especially in a short – term missions context, missionaries frequently give something to the people that they could frequently do for themselves.  The good news about how Jesus has died to save us is the most important thing that missionaries have to share, however, other methods and skills are important to share to help the people and build relationships as well.  Missionaries today frequently come from a Western “get as much done as possible” perspective, which is not shared by the rest of the world.  Instead, Steve Saint suggested that our first goal as missionaries should be to share the good news with people who do not know Jesus; secondly we should train them up so that they can train others.  This makes more sense from both a numbers and cultural perspective.  First, it changes the mode of missions from addition of believers to the church to multiplication, as believers raise up new disciples, and these believers do the same.  Secondly, this allows believers within a specific culture to train others of that culture as well, which is far more effective than always having the foreigners come in.  I-TEC aspires to do this process with medical, dental, and other programs as well, ensuring that those skills can also be passed on once the first missionaries leave.  As Steve Saint puts it well in his book, “The Great Omission”, he says, “Evangelizing the world is like a relay race.  In areas where there is no church, missionaries run the first lap.  Then we should hand off to the local believers to finish the race.”

First, missionaries should go to listen and learn.  Only once we’ve been able to understand the culture and people to the point where their problems become our problems can we begin to start sharing.  One of the most impactful ideas that we’ve learned about thus far for me has been the importance of avoiding dependency.  Frequently missionaries do what the nationals could also do, but have no intention of ever leaving and training nationals to fill these roles.  As prideful human begins, we naturally feel good when we feel needed, which creates a dependency on the missionaries rather than on God.  In fact, pride is the main issue at hand here, as Boice suggests.  If we were to eliminate pride in missions, we could probably solve most of the issues.

We do not share our knowledge and train up nationals to do what we can do frequently as a result of an underlying bias that they cannot do what we can do.  This is very hard to hear, especially to North Americans such as myself who have participated in short term missions trips, where frequently the main goal is to accomplish something for the people that we believe they cannot do for themselves.  I’ll have to write more about thoughts on short term missions another time after I’ve had some more time to process what I’ve learned. 

On another interesting point: why not just do missions in the U.S. where we know the culture?  Firstly, most of the people in the United States (which I’ve been told here is not really the name of a country, since I am currently still in the Americas) have heard about Jesus.  Secondly, almost all have access to some form of medical care and basic human needs.  In addition, as we find in Mark 6, Jesus could was not even honored in his hometown.  Frequently, we must look elsewhere to be heard.

Lastly, missionaries must have an exit plan.  A great model is found in looking at the missionary Paul written about in the New Testament.  His missions trips mentioned in the book of Acts lasted from only a few days to a maximum of two years.  He left the people while they were still new believers, unsure about everything, and wrote them letters to edify them in their faith.  He did not stay with them for the rest of his life, but moved on to share the good news with other people.

Wow, that’s a lot!  Thank you so much for supporting me!  Although I am not doing as many outreaches as might be expected, what I am learning in the modules and the missions training as well as practical experience will undoubtedly shape my future as a missionary.  I’d really appreciate prayer for continued learning about missions, the modules, and Spanish, an upcoming outreach where we will be assisting dentists, continued outreaches at Nuevo Amanecer, and for other outreach opportunities.  Also, please pray for relationships with the youth at Young Life, which are going really well.  I was able to talk about the Operation Auca story with Pablo, who is a leader among the group and now I know has interest in becoming a missionary.  Happy July!

 God Bless,

      Camden

                From left to right: Boice the birthday boy, Mincaye, yours truly, and Felipe.

Galo and his wife Eugenia, which is the most difficult word to pronounce in Spanish.

 Mincaye giving me my Huaorani name at lunch.

Boice hard at work doing I-Med.

                                The mountains are so cool!  From our "backyard".
  

            On the left is the airstrip, on the right are houses, and in the center are the Andes.