End of the Spear

On January 20, the film End of the Spear opens in over 1000 theatres across the U.S.

My friend Ed Delgado and I had a private screening when we were in Tulsa in September. What an amazing film, capturing the essence of the story of Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and their three colleagues, but most importantly, capturing the true story of redemption, forgiveness, and grace.

Jim Elliot is the name most familiar to many people, notably for the quote from his journal, shown above in a scan from the journal itself. I knew the name Saint mainly because my brother lived in Saint Hall when he was at Wheaton College.

This film takes two perspectives that many people have never heard:
• the perspective of Mincaye, a member of the killing party who killed Nate Saint.
• and the perspective of Steve Saint, Nate's son. Only 5 when his father died, he followed his father to the jungles of the Waodani tribe, largely because of the influence of his aunt Rachel Saint, who had gone to live among the Waodani and teach them of Christ.

Most of the world never heard of the results:
• in a tribe judged among the most violent in history, among whom 60% of adult deaths were homicides by the spear, the killings stopped - just stopped - when the gospel came to them.
• when Rachel Saint died, the Waodani invoked a custom that requires a relative to step forward to fill the role of the deceased. They asked Steve Saint to come and live among them, representing their culture to the encroaching world. And he did. In doing so, he embraced the man who had been his father's killer.

It is an amazing story and an amazing film.

Today Steve and Mincaye are in Dallas at a premiere of the film, and a friend of mine with the production company, Every Tribe Entertainment, was going to arrange for me to meet them and interview them. But alas, the word came in this morning: media presence there is very heavy. In fact, there are some national media who couldn’t get interviews on their shows who have RSVP’ed for this one in hopes of getting interviews at the theater.

So we won't be making the drive. We'll wait for the opening night, when I will be taking a group to see the film. I hope you'll go see it on opening weekend, too.