Don’t Kill Us!

The following is a read aloud story for July 2006. This is one of a series of stories especially written for Awana Clubs, home-schoolers, Sunday school classes, VBS, mission conferences, or just the fun of reading about people in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God. We are changing the pace a bit. For the next few months I want to share some true stories of people and events that have happened in the Amazon jungle. The story you are about to read is absolutely true. I was there. God was there! It is just a fear-filled memory now as it happened July 8th and 9th, 1973. I was 34-years-old and Nadine and I were pioneering a new work with a new tribe in the deep isolated jungles of the Amazon. The Culina people were very primitive and killing one another all too frequently. And we were right in the middle of it!
The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE)
(Missionary/cultural observer with the Amazon tribes for many years)
Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, Florida

My journal entry for July 9, 1973 reads, “At midnight we were standing under a star-filled sky with a fattening moon slowly heading West. At our feet lay a dead man whose life was now past and whose eternal soul was forever gone…how dreadfully sad! Who knows the deep sorrow we feel at seeing a lifeless corpse of an Indian man who never knew Jesus personally. We gave him some Gospel, BUT PERHAPS TOO LITTLE TOO LATE!”
Isanaua. We had nicknamed this man “the gorilla”, as he was of larger stature than the average Culina. Stout. Thick. Strong. He was the brother of our village chief, Nodia, and he was a killer. Nodia, himself, had killed nine different Culina before he was 30-years-old, and Isanaua had killed his share. They were friendly to us and wanted us to live in their village, but they always had murder on their minds. Revenge killings for past crimes against their clan members. It was a vicious cycle of kill “them” because they had attacked and killed “us”. Interclan warfare.
But what happened on Sunday, July 8th, was not a revenge killing. Isanaua had two wives and yet when a new family came to the village with a teenage daughter, he wanted her for a wife too. He talked to the girl’s father, Iba, and apparently Iba accepted a payment for his daughter to be Isanaua’s third wife. Something was given in exchange. But the young lady decided she did not want to be wife # 3! And she certainly did not want to be married to a “gorilla”. So, Iba and his family took their daughter when Isanaua was not home and they fled up the jungle river to another village. When the man came home, he was humiliated and shamed by everyone knowing he had been rejected by the young teenager. He immediately put on the war paint…completely covering his face with red dye and got his grown sons to do the same. Off they raced by trail to kill Iba and his family!!
We were a young missionary team. Ray Mellott, a World War II veteran, had just flown in to spend a few days building his house and his wife, Lena, stayed out at the town. Mark Emsheimer, a young man in his 20s and single, was hosting Ray in Mark’s newly made house. And Nadine and I had small children at home, including a baby boy, Brad, who had just arrived in May. A young man from Oregon, Dan Danforth, was there to help us finish up our new house. We had never been in a situation like this before. The evening of July 8th Isanaua and his clan ambushed and murdered Iba as he was coming down the river in the dark to escape. They blasted him with shotguns. Fortunately, only Iba was killed in the ambush and the other members of his family escaped into the woods. But about 11:30 at night we were all awakened by the frantic shouts and screams and wailings of women outside our house, “YOUR PEOPLE HAVE KILLED MY HUSBAND! IBA IS DEAD! YOUR PEOPLE KILLED HIM!” Iba’s wife was frantic. Mark, Ray, and I decided to go over to the village and there we found the blasted body of the Indian man. Iba’s clan and family were just sure that Isanaua and his people were going to come in the night and kill them all. The women kept going down the trail and shouting, “DON’T KILL US! DON’T KILL US!” They would shout out our names into the dark telling the unseen enemy that we were also there!
Fear. Cold, clammy fear. Would they attack? Were they actually out there in the dark? How were Nadine and the children doing over at the house with Dan as their sole protector? Nadine admitted she slept very little. Ray and Mark and I sat by the body talking about eternal souls. Death is so final. No more hope to save this soul. He was in Hell. These are terrible realities to Bible-believing missionaries. We were just learning their tongue and we hadn’t the language well enough to tell them of Jesus and what He did for them on the Cross. How frustrating! We listened all night to the women wailing and shouting out “DON’T KILL US!” One time I heard a noise in the dark and I sprung up and walked down the trail a few feet and shouted, “ISANAUA, IT IS I!! IT IS DOUEMI! DON’T KILL US!” We learned later they had not even come to the village that night and were actually far, far away fleeing from the fear of avengers who would be after them!
Have you ever been in a fear filled circumstance? Your heart beats rapidly and you begin to sweat even on the coolest of nights. You keep repeating to yourself, “Fear not!”, but you keep fearing anyway. It is a human response. But God has promised to never leave us or forsake us…and He never does! When you get scared about something…a noise in the dark or whatever…just pray to God and He will calm your heart. He always does! Read Psalm 91 and especially verse 5 which says, “thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night”. Even if that “terror” is a wild, gorilla-like man!

Poor Polly Parrot

The following is a read aloud story for December 2005. This is one of a series of stories especially written for Awana Clubs, home-schoolers, Sunday school classes, VBS, mission conferences, or just the fun of reading about children in a wild land called: “The Amazon Rain Forest”. Print them out. Collect them. E-mail them to others who have children and would like to get these stories. Use them for the glory of God. Sorry, this story is coming to you a month late. My “story-maker brain” went on vacation. The bones for this story come from a veteran missionary with the Manchineri Indians, Peter Rich, who told us this sad but amusing tale one evening in a fellowship meeting. I hope you will enjoy it and pass it on to others. The old story teller, Douemi (Dough-way-MEE) (Missionary/cultural observer with the Amazon tribes for many years) Serving with New Tribes Mission, Sanford, Florida

Young Getulio sat in the corner of his palm-thatched shelter and studied the movements of his mother. She was busily keeping their wood fire going and boiling their potatoes for the main meal. He stretched and played with a small bow and arrow that he always kept close to him. You never knew when a blue and green lizzard would suddenly race up into the village yard! If one did appear…ZIP…Getulio was good at scaring the wits out of those lizzards!
“My son,” his mother suddenly said from the fire, “this morning old Zepi came with the most wonderful gift. Did you see the young parrot he gave me? Look at it over there! It will grow up to be a beautiful bird! I’m so proud of it and I want you to be very careful around that parrot. Don’t harm it! It is so beautiful to look at!”
Getulio had already studied his mother’s newest pet. She was always caring for baby monkeys, or young hawks, parakeets, and he chuckled to himself as he remembered the little black buzzard she had nursed to adulthood. Mother’s pets. He put the arrow in his bow and when she wasn’t looking he aimed it at the young red and yellow parrot. He could easily put an arrow through that bird…lizzards were harder to hit! He relaxed the tension of the arrow. It was certainly going to be a hot, boring day.
“My son”, she said again, “I am going out to the field to get some big bananas for roasting. Do not let any of the children play with the parrot. Did your ears hear what I said?” And she took her basket and left.
Getulio eyed the parrot. It was stretching it’s young wings. I wonder, he thought, how fast the parrot can fly? When they fly overhead in the late afternoon going to their nesting trees they really seem to fly fast. He looked at the long string that was laying on the floor and then picked it up and carefully tied it around the parrot’s middle. Standing up he began to swing the parrot around and around…quite slowly. The parrot tried to keep its equilibrium by fluttering its wings. Then Getulio swung the parrot a bit faster and the parrot countered by flapping those young wings faster and faster. Wow, this bird really could go fast. Now Getulio increased the spinning of the poor bird and enjoyed the squawks and screams of the parrot. Faster! Faster! The bird was now twirling around at record breaking speeds. In fact, it was also string breaking speeds! Suddenly the string broke and the poor parrot went screeching head long into the wall of the house. Getulio suddenly felt panick hitting him! He raced to the red and yellow feathery pile and knew instinctively it was dead. Dead! He had killed mother’s parrot. Oh dear. And soon she’d be coming back with the bananas.
His mind raced. What could he do? Mother would whip him when she returned and then, worse yet, she would chid and harangue and scold him for weeks without end. He had to think of something! First he untied the string from the limp, broken body. He threw the string in the fire and watched with satisfaction as it went up in smoke. He next put the bird back where Mother had placed it. But how could he tell her it had died? What excuse could he give for it’s demise? Looking up above the dead bird he saw the rolled up hammocks and mosquito nets. That was it! He would pull them down and tell mother the bird had suffocated when they fell down on it. He hadn’t noticed in time to rescue the parrot.
Mother soon returned. She worked on her bananas. She eyed Getulio in his corner and wondered why he was being so quiet and acting so strange and nervous. Then she saw the heap of hammock and mosquito net right on top of her young parrot! Racing over she uncovered it and screamed, “My parrot is dead! Getulio, my parrot is dead!” But Getulio was gone. He was racing down the trail and into the forest to hide. He’d face mother later.
Be sure your sins will find you out. Have you ever gotten yourself into a predicament like Getulio did? Maybe you didn’t kill a parrot, but you probably messed with something you were told not to mess with! If someone tells a child that a certain thing is hot and not to touch it…doesn’t he always want to touch it just to see if it really is? How many of my fingers did I burn as a young boy? The Bible says that God sees everything we do. He knows. Nothing is done in secret. Have you ever tried to hide something you did from your mother or father? Did you ever blame the dog for breaking the lamp that you accidentally broke yourself? Be honest. Admit your mistakes. Take your punishment when you really are guilty and deserve it. You can’t run from God and hide. So don’t try. Confess your sins, and He’ll forgive you!! Always.