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Book based on a true story
By Ethel Emily Wallis
Edited by Colin Harbinson
Available from YWAM Publishing
Foreword
When Harper and Row first published the hardback edition of The
Dayuma Story in 1960, it sold over 60,00 copies. Republished in
1971 as a Spire softback, this compelling story was brought to another
generation of readers. Now titled Dayuma, the book is being re-released
alongside the stage production of the same name. This new updated
version also marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the most enduring
stories in modern mission history.
I vividly remember hearing as a young boy the report that five
young men had been speared to death by Waorani Indians, known then
to the outside world as Aucas. The story struck a resonating chord
in me and, along with others across the world, I prayed that somehow
God would provide a way to reach this seemingly ‘unreachable’
people.
God answered those prayers in the form of a young indian girl.
Dayuma became the bridge to her hostile and reclusive people. From
the tragic death of five young American missionaries on a small
sandy beach in the Ecuadorian Jungle, sprang a stunning story of
courage, hope, and forgiveness.
Several years later on that same beach, two teenage children of
the martyred pilot, Nate Saint, were baptized. What is even more
incredible is that they were baptized by the very same Indians who
had speared their father to death.
Quite a transformation had taken place in the Waorani between the
two trips to that beach!
Twenty-five years after the killings, my wife and I were invited
by Rachel Saint to meet Dayuma. Landing on a muddy jungle clearing
that served as a landing strip, we were greeted by the Waorani.
Dayuma led us to her open-framed thatched hut. Its sole contents
were a hammock, a blowgun, and a jungle radio, together with her
two special pets, a parrot and a monkey. We were lead through the
steamy jungle to the Cururay River and poled downriver to ‘Palm
Beach’ in a dugout canoe. Standing with some of the ‘killers’
beside the common grave of the missionaries they had slain, I had
the deep conviction that God had not finished with this story yet.
Within a year of that visit to Ecuador, Dayuma and Rachel stayed
in our YWAM home. They had come to see the Canadian premier of the
stage production, Dayuma. How would a Waorani indian woman who had
lived her life in the jungle, respond to a theatrical experience
that portrayed her people, and in which she was the central character?
When the privately arranged preview was over, Dayuma wanted to
talk to the cast. As Rachel interpreted, Dayuma related that seeing
the reenactment of her life story had challenged her to hurry back
to her people, so that she could take the Bible, which she called
God’s ‘Carving,’ to the downriver tribes who had
not yet heard.
In recent months, Dayuma sent a challenging and timely message
from her home in the Ecuadorian rain forest. She said, “There
are people in other lands who have not heard yet. Are you going
to tell them? You ought to go tell them. Do you understand?”
This aging woman of courage calls us to follow her example, to
take God’s ‘Carving’ to our own ‘tribe’
and then ‘downriver’ to those who have never heard.
I would like to express special thanks and appreciation,
to Ethel Emily Wallis, for her willingness to update the original
manuscript.
to Marj Van Der Puy, widow of Nate Saint, for her friendship and
unflagging support.
for Rachel Saint, now buried with the people she loved and so faithfully
served.
Colin Harbinson
Originator and Artistic Director
stage production -Dayuma
May 16th, 1996
If you would like this book, you can order it from
YWAM
Publishing's web site.
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