Nate Saint Totally Explained

Everything about Nate Saint totally explained

Nathanael "Nate" Saint (August 30, 1923 – January 8, 1956) was an evangelical Christian missionary pilot to Ecuador who, along with four others, was killed while attempting to evangelize the Waodani people through efforts known as Operation Auca.

Early life

Nate Saint was seventh in a family of eight children who grew up near Philadelphia in an atmosphere of deep Puritan piety. His father, Lawrence Saint, was an eminent designer of stained glass windows. The family attended prayer meetings on Wednesdays and Sunday morning and evening services and Sunday school. Said the father: "We didn't encourage the children's friends to come and play on Sunday. I read the Bible and each of the children prayed, beginning with the eldest."(External Link

) Nate was an avid flier from his childhood on — he began taking flying lessons in high school, and during World War II, he served in the U.S. Army. He was forced to leave the army because the infection flared up again in his leg. He enrolled in Wheaton College following the war but dropped out before graduating in order to join the Mission Aviation Fellowship. In 1948, with his wife, Marjorie Farris, he began working in Ecuador, establishing an air base at an abandoned oil exploration camp called Shell Mera, from which he supplied local missionaries with medicines, mail and other necessities.

Operation Auca

In September of 1955, after the arrival of teammates Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, and Peter Fleming (Roger Youderian would join them a few months later), Saint found a Huaorani settlement while searching by air. In order to reach the remote tribe, Saint and the team lowered gifts, including machetes and clothing, to the Huaorani in a bucket tied to the plane. The Huaorani were a widely feared tribe, because of their chronic fear and anger. They tended to attack and kill any outsiders without provocation. Nevertheless, the tribe displayed excitement on receiving the gifts, and soon gave back gifts of their own. After three months of successful air contact, the missionaries decided to attempt to meet the people on the ground, and on January 3, 1956, they set up camp four miles from the Auca settlement, using a portion of the beach as a landing strip. Their initial personal contact with the Huaorani started out encouraging; however, on Sunday, January 8, 1956 the entire team was killed on the beach when armed Huaorani met them. Saint's body was found downstream. He was 32 when he died.

Legacy

Saint and the other four men became famous worldwide as a result. Life Magazine published a 10-page photo essay on the story, which was also covered in Reader's Digest and many other publications. The story is credited with sparking an interest in Christian missions among the youth of their time and is still today to find Christian missionaries working throughout the world who claim to have been inspired by it. Today, a small school for missionary children in Shell, Ecuador bears Nate Saint's name. Rachel Saint, Nate's sister continued the mission efforts to the Huaorani, which eventually came to fruition.
   In 1966 Marjorie Saint married Abe Van Der Puy, president of HCJB. He died in 2003, and Marj died on November 22, 2004 from cancer. She is buried in Hillcrest Memorial Gardens, south of Ocala, Florida.
   The son of Nate Saint, Steve, now works with the Huaorani Indians and often travels around the world preaching the gospel, often accompanied by, Mincaye, one of the killers of Palm Beach. In 2005, a documentary based on the story was released entitled Beyond the Gates of Splendor. The following year, a feature film entitled End of the Spear was released on January 20, 2006, a week and a half after the 50 year anniversary of the killings. Saint wrote a book about his experiences, also titled End of the Spear, to coincide with the release of the film.

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