In this issue we feature Steve Saint and his work in fighting dependency among the Huaorani people who killed his father in 1956 while attempting to
bring the Gospel to them. Steve is also trying to help many tribal peoples like them to survive in a very technical world. This story of the Huaorani is a sad one of much Christian missionary effort that has resulted in a dependent people, unable to reach their own people with the Gospel. Steve Saint in describing the problem also leads us to some ways to prevent dependency and free those who have already come under its grip. Glenn Schwartz further describes how missionary attitudes can contribute to this problem. These are vital issues that the church must wrestle with if they are to plant an indigenous church in every people. I trust that this topic will be challenging and sobering as we approach this subject.
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For His Glory
Rick Wood
Managing Editor
Editorial Comment
-Ralph D. Winter
If missionaries do not preach about a God who is interested in all suffering, all distortions of His creative handiwork, on all levels we are simply misrepresenting the full scope of His pervasive love and concern—His very nature.
Includes a message from Roberta Winter
MF Behind the Scenes
—Rick Wood, Managing Editor
The Second Tragedy Among the "Aucas" is introduced.
Interesting Letters to the Editor.
Fighting Dependency Among the “Aucas”
An Interview with Steve Saint
by Rick Wood
In 1956, Nate Saint, father of Steve Saint, and four other young missionaries (Jim Elliott, Pete Fleming, Ed McCulley, and Roger Youderian) were speared to death while trying to reach the “Auca” Indians (more properly called Huaorani) in the jungles of Ecuador. Today, Steve Saint is helping them to break free from the stifling dependency created by outsiders which threatens their survival as a people.
Looking at Missions from Their Side, Not Ours
by Steve Saint
Nothing we do in missions should preclude indigenous believers from shouldering their responsibility to be God’s ambassadors in their Jerusalem. The greatest weakness in our North-American missionary effort today is that we are taking our role too far in too few places!
How Missionary Attitudes Can Create Dependency
By Glenn Schwartz
The following article was presented by Glenn Schwartz at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society hosted here on the USCWM campus on April 17, 1998. This article deals with the fact that the problem of dependency is more than just a financial one. It is also a problem of our attitudes.
News from the JESUS Film Project
Mission Training File:
Edited by Ben Sells
An update on distance education and mission training news
Global Lessons from the Worldwide Church of God
Gleanings for world missions from a wayward movement gone aright.
How does the American evangelical community respond when one of its customary entries into The Kingdom of the Cults refutes its aberrant doctrinal distinctives and repents of its abuse to those within their own fold? What is the significance of world missions in the Worldwide Church of God?
Prayer Is the Key to OMF/REAP Adopt-A-People Strategy Success
by Dave Geisler
The passion and commitment of Overseas Missionary Fellowship to boldly go where no one has gone before to reach unreached peoples with the Gospel is reflected in their current strategic venture called REAP, which stands for: Reaching East Asia’s Peoples.
Asia Mission Congress II
Asians Moving Forward to Reach Unreached Peoples
by David Bogosian
Last fall 388 mission leaders from 15 Asian countries gathered together in Pattaya, Thailand for the second Asia Missions Congress.
KIDS CORNER
by Gerry Dueck
Children's Mission Resources! Check 'em out!
Finishers Project Targets Boomer Generation for Missions
Attempting to harness the talents of a generation nearing retirement, a new project retools service opportunities to take advantage of life experience.
—Nelson Malwitz
Book Review
Ethnic Realities and the Church
Lessons from Kurdistan
A history of mission work 1668-1990
By Robert Blincoe
—Reviewed by Ian Downs
Having worked in Kurdistan himself, Robert Blincoe writes this volume of history and missiology from a unique, firsthand vantage point.
