Victory of the Martyrs
The film, The End of the Spear, has just been released. It tells the story of the five young missionaries who were murdered by the Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956. I remember living through the news of that terrible day. We were students at Nyack Missionary College at the time and the news hit us hard. We thought it was the most terrible thing and we mourned their loss deeply. But it wasn’t long till we began to see God’s hand in it. Because of the loss of the five young men, there were many, many young men and women who determined to step up and take on their task. It took a lot longer to see how God was working in the hearts and lives of the Auca Indians but He was and today members of this tribe are joyfully serving God.
One man is quoted as saying about that time 50 years ago, “We were seen back then as savages. The devil blinded us. We were always killing . . .I can’t explain how different I feel now.”
This ties in with the testimony of David Thompson, missionary doctor at Bongolo Evangelical Hospital in Gabon, Africa. His parents were murdered in Vietnam in 1968, during the Tet Offensive. He has said that he was very angry when he first heard the news. He questioned God abut the purpose of his parents death and three times he heard the Lord say to him, “Do you trust me? Then thank me.” Now we know that as a result of the Thompsons’ deaths, the Monong people group grieved the loss and responded by turning their lives over to Christ. Today they are a strong Church.
We do know that God knows best, but so often we only see the here and now hurt and loss.
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