NATE SAINT

'Nathanael "Nate" Saint' (August 30, 1923 – January 8, 1956) was an evangelical Christian missionary pilot to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Huaorani people through efforts known as Operation Auca.

Contents

Early Life

Operation Auca

Legacy

References

External links

Early Life

Nate Saint was seventh in a family of eight children who grew up near Philadelphia in an atmosphere of deep Puritan piety. His father, Lawrence Saint, was an eminent designer of stained glass windows. The family attended prayer meetings on Wednesdays and Sunday morning and evening services and Sunday school. Said the father: "We didn't encourage the children's friends to come and play on Sunday. I read the Bible and each of the children prayed, beginning with the eldest."[1]
Nate was an avid flier from his childhood on — he began taking flying lessons in high school, and during World War II, he served in the U.S. Army. He was forced to leave the army because the infection flared up again in his leg. He enrolled in Wheaton College following the war but dropped out before graduating in order to join the Mission Aviation Fellowship. In 1948, with his wife, Marjorie Farris, he began working in Ecuador, establishing an air base at an abandoned oil exploration camp called Shell Mera, from which he supplied local missionaries with medicines, mail and other necessities.

Operation Auca

In September of 1955, after the arrival of teammates Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, and Peter Fleming (Roger Youderian would join them a few months later), Saint found a Huaorani settlement while searching by air. In order to reach the remote tribe, Saint and the team lowered gifts, including machetes and clothing, to the Huaorani in a bucket tied to the plane. The Huaoris were a widely feared tribe, because of their chronic fear and anger. They tended to attack and kill any outsiders without provocation. Nevertheless, the tribe displayed excitement on receiving the gifts, and soon gave back gifts of their own. After three months of successful air contact, the missionaries decided to attempt to meet the people on the ground, and on January 3, 1956, they set up camp four miles from the Auca settlement, using a portion of the beach as a landing strip. Their initial personal contact with the Huaorani started out encouraging; however, on Sunday, January 8, 1956 the entire team was killed on the beach when armed Huaorani met them. The Huaoris were once again overwhelmed by their cultural paranoia and couldn't resist killing the visitors. Saint's body was found downstream. He was 32 when he died.

Legacy

Saint and his friends became instant heroes worldwide, and ''Life Magazine'' published a 10-page photo essay on their mission and death. They are credited with sparking an interest in Christian missions among the youth of their time and are still considered an inspiration for Christian missionaries working throughout the world. Today, a small school for the children of missionaries in Ecuador bears Nate Saint's name.
Rachel Saint, Nate's sister established a peaceful contact with the Huaorani after his death and continued the missionary work among them for many years. The Huaoris eventually listened to their visitors and came to believe that it was possible to live without attacking and killing their neighbors. In this way, the missionaries certainly saved this group from certain annihilation by military forces. Today the Huaoris are able to communicate and interact with their neighbors, and even with foreigners. In 1966 Marjorie Saint married Abe Van Der Puy, president of HCJB, and on November 22, 2004, she died of cancer.
The son of Nate Saint, Steve, now works with the Huaorani Indians and often travels around the world preaching the gospel, sometimes accompanied by one of the men who killed his father, Mincaye. In 2005, a documentary based on the story was released entitled ''Beyond the Gates of Splendor''. The following year, a feature film entitled ''End of the Spear'' was released on January 20, 2006, a week and a half after the 50 year anniversary of the killings. Saint wrote a book about his experiences, also titled ''End of the Spear'', to coincide with the release of the film.

References

★ Biographical sketch

★ ''Jungle Pilot'' by Russell T. Hitt ISBN 978-1572930223

★ ''End of the Spear'' by Steve Saint ISBN 978-0842364393

External links

★ Missionary Aviation Fellowship history

★ Nate Saint Memorial School

★ Five Missionary Martyrs

★ Articles and Links about Nate Saint

★ End of The Spear Movie