Western Christians know them as the Aucas, but really, their name is Waorani.
That’s just the first thing I didn’t understand until I picked up Kathryn T. Long’s God in the Rainforest.: A Tale of Martyrdom & Redemption in Amazonian Ecuador.
I first heard the stories long ago. Up until this week, I only knew them through Elisabeth Elliot’s pen or Steven Saint’s movies.
There’s so much I didn’t know.
Long wrote an excellent and thoroughly researched book about the Aucas, missionaries and everyone else in the Ecuador jungle. The book spans 60 years.
Here are four surprises, but they weren’t the only ones I read in God in the Rainforest.
Elisabeth Elliot’s role
Along with Aucas not being the proper name for the indigenous people, I learned Elisabeth Elliot did not do a lot of translation work in the years she and her daughter Valerie lived in the jungle.
Long presented a mostly positive picture of Elliot.
Earlier this year, I read Valerie Elliot Shepard‘s interesting book about her parents’ courtship, Devotedly, The Personal Letters and Love Story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot.
It’s a fine book detailing the deliberate choices, prayers, Scripture reading, and determination to follow God’s will that both Elisabeth and Jim worked through prior to their marriage.
I have no doubt that Elisabeth went to Ecuador determined to do God’s will come what may.
Even if that meant going to live with her husband’s killers in an attempt to reach them for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But the focused and determined Elliot (widow of martyr Jim Elliot) and Rachel Saint (sister of martyred Nate Saint), did not see eye-to-eye on their work.
Rather than confuse the Waorani, Elisabeth left the mission field.
God used her in other ways.
Another martyrdom occurred
I think that shocked me the most.
Many years after the five men lost their lives on a beach, Waoranis speared two Catholics to death.
Known as the “Aguarico Martyrs” Catholic Bishop Alejandro Labaca and Sister Inés Arango died, probably on July 21, 1987.
Both had worked among the Waorani for years, though their language skills were limited.
They genuinely loved the Waorani and intervened to protect them from a potentially dangerous scheme.
Looking back, Capuchin missionaries close to the bishop were convinced that Labaca’s actions leading up to his encounter . . . could be understood only in light of his conviction that if Vela [a go-between in an incident between oil workers and Waorani that ended in death] found them [Waorani] first, the results would be tragic.”
God in the Rainforest page 280
The indigenous people ran up against oil and other explorations in the rainforest. Labaca, like the missionaries with SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics, part of Wycliffe Bible Translators), wanted to protect them from outsiders who did not have the best interests of the Waorani at heart.
Many outsiders wanted to take advantage of them.
Well-wishers have been battling over what’s best for them ever since.
The Waorani’s jungle is a national park
Part of the area in which the Waiorani live is now Yasuni National Park.
Located nearly to the Peruvian border in eastern Ecuador, it appears to be bordered by Waorani Ethnic Reserve and an “intangible zone.”
This area has many oil reserves, not to mention unique species of animal life and the extensive biodiversity of the rain forest.
People have encroached upon the rainforest for more than 60 years. This forced the Waorani into smaller areas, or deeper into the rainforest interior.
The story is more nuanced than past portrayals
Of course, it is.
Whether indigenous rainforest hunters, farmers, oil workers, missionaries or linguists, the Aucas story remains complicated and multi-layered.
Long estimated the percentage of Christian Waorani at about 20-25% of the small population. (out of about 2000 people total).
Their worship services may differ from those in evangelical American churches, in part because they’ve made a Waorani form of Christianity their own.
Most live with some contact with the modern world.
They’re not frozen in jungle attire (or lack thereof) in time. They desire the benefits of modern civilization–particularly the health benefits.
Thanks to the work of teacher Pat Kelley, and linguists Rosi Jung and Catherine Peeke, the Waorani received a New Testament translated into their own tongue.
Long’s epilogue perhaps explains it best.
As far as the missionary-Waorani story, perhaps it is time for critics to concede that SIL workers did help the Waorani end some patterns of internal violence and survive contact with outsiders.
The Waorani are much more than the “supporting” cast for missionary heroism. They are people with a unique language, culture, and geographic location that–in common with all other cultures–reflects both the goodness and the brokenness of the created world.”
God in the Rainforest page 349
A meticulously researched (57 pages of endnotes!) book, God in the Rainforest taught me a great deal and left me with much to ponder.
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