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Overview
2005 ECPA Retailer's Choice Award winner for best biography/autobiography!
Steve Saint was five years old when his father, missionary pilot Nate Saint, was speared to death by a primitive Ecuadorian tribe. In adulthood, Steve, having left Ecuador for a successful business career in the United States, never imagined making the jungle his home again. But when that same tribe asks him to help them, Steve, his wife, and their teenage children move back to the jungle. There, Steve learns long-buried secrets about his father's murder, confronts difficult choices, and finds himself caught between two worlds. Soon to be a major motion picture (January 2006), End of the Spear brilliantly chronicles the continuing story that first captured the world's attention in the bestselling book, Through Gates of Splendor. Tyndale House Publishers
Synopsis
“When I was a boy, I cried. But now I see it well.”
Steve Saint was only five years old when his father was brutally killed by Waodani warriors, men from the most savage culture ever known. But in a story almost too amazing to be true, Steve eventually comes to know—and even love—the very ones who drove the spears into his father’s body.
Decades after their lives were changed by learning to walk God’s trail, the Waodani asked Steve to return to the jungle with his family to live among them again and teach them how to interact with the encroaching outside world. Striving to mesh his two very different worlds, Steve must face the tragic events of his past and learn to fully trust God through terrible danger, great loss, and remarkable joy.
Publishers Weekly
In this heartfelt memoir, Saint writes about growing up with the Ecuadoran tribe whose members killed his father in 1956, and about taking his wife and teenage children back to Ecuador in the 1990s to live among them again. Many of Saint's readers will be familiar with the spearing deaths of five American missionaries by Auca Indians a half-century ago, a story recounted by Elisabeth Elliot in Through Gates of Splendor (1996 revised edition). Saint, who was four years old at the time of the murders, adds to that familiarity with this account of his deep, familial bond with his father's assassin. Specifically, Saint debunks myths about the tribe. He explains that Auca, which means naked savage, is a derogatory name given to the tribe by outsiders, and that they are actually called the Waodani. While he does not dispute that they were vicious killers before they converted to Christianity soon after they murdered Saint's father, he takes pains to help his readers understand what led the Waodani to their murderous worldview. In a long passage, he tells the story of the 1956 murders from the Waodani perspective. Most of the book is devoted to his latest experiences with his Waodani family. Although Saint is not a very accomplished writer, his voice is authentic and humble, and his story will undoubtedly inspire many. (Dec.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.