Nestled along a bend on the Curaray river, deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon lies the village of Geyepare. A nine-hour canoe ride from the nearest road, the village is situated in the middle of Waorani Territory - a vast stretch of jungle largely untouched by western civilization, but filled with the stories, legends, and history of the Wao people. I went to Geyepare seeking to serve and hoped that in doing so, I would find answers - answers about the world, its problems, and what my role in life would be to help solve them. So many stories talk about sincere seekers going into nature and finding truth, clarity, and enlightenment. Like Moses going up into the mountain of God to find wisdom and purpose from the burning bush, I hoped for my own smaller transcendent experience in the jungle that would bring all of my uncertainties into focus. At the very least, I hoped to be able to help the people of Geyepare in some meaningful way.
Front Lines
Morning sunlight filled the clearing, as we all gathered around Andrew, who was explaining our purposes for being in Geyepare. Having been cleared of vegetation weeks before, the clearing we stood in was plain, but looking over Andrew’s shoulder, I could see the tangle of trees, vines, and ferns in the forest proper. I itched to go out into that mess of green to see what was out there. As Andrew lectured about the logistics of the construction project, I thought about how someone had mentioned that only a day’s walk from where we stood, lived a Waorani tribe that remained uncontacted by the outside world; a whole group of people still living the way their ancestors had for millennia - living off the jungle, learning from it, and being a part of it. Suddenly, something that Andrew said snapped me out of my reverie. He was explaining that the Ecuadorian government had recently decided to place vast swaths of Waorani territory up for auction - to be sold to the highest bidding oil company. In fact, the very ground we stood on, the village of Geyepare, and everything within a hundred miles was part of just one of the land blocks up for auction. Andrew explained how Geyepare, and many other Waorani communities were locked in a fierce legal and political battle with the Ecuadorian government along with western extraction companies and were fighting to save their land from destruction. This beautiful jungle wasn’t some paradise away from modernity, but rather the front lines in a war of some of the most powerful forces in western civilization against the last vestiges of untouched indigenous cultures.
As I processed this information, scenes from the history of my own homeland flashed through my mind. I thought of tribes like the Utes and Shoshone living in the mountain west, and how my own forefathers came and drove them off, out of their homes and onto reservations. Would that be a foreshadowing of what would happen here?
Sins of My Fathers
Pioneers came to Utah Valley with the same wish as all the other saints heading west - to find a place where they could live their religion with the people of God, free from violence and persecution. However, upon entering the valley in the spring of 1849, they were met by a group of Timpanogos Utes who made it clear that the pioneers would not be allowed any further. The settlers’ interpreter Dimick B. Huntington approached the group and began explaining the pioneers’ intentions for settling the valley. Huntington expressed their willingness to coexist with the Utes and then he raised his right hand and swore by the sun that they would never drive the Utes out of Utah valley. The natives accepted this promise, and not many days later, Fort Utah was established on the banks of the Provo River.[1] I’d like to believe that the pioneers had every intention of upholding their promise. I’d like to believe that at least most of them were better than many historians portray. Now however, all history can reliably tell us is what the actions of a few men were, and we are left to decide for ourselves the purity of everyone else’s hearts.
On a sweltering August day, six months after the founding of Fort Utah, Rufus Stoddard, Jerome Zabriskie, and Richard Ivie set out hunting along the Provo River and encountered an old Ute nicknamed Old Bishop.[2] They found Old Bishop along the riverbank, wearing a fine woven shirt - clearly from one of the settlers. Maybe it was the heat of the day, the frustration of a fruitless hunt, or perhaps it was a guilty look in Old Bishop’s eyes. Whatever it was, one of the men let loose a tirade accusing Old Bishop of stealing the shirt from him. The other two joined in and Old Bishop frantically asserted he had traded for it. It wasn't long though before the conflict turned physical. A lunge from one of the men followed by a failed dodge from Old bishop, and then the sound of ripping as the shirt was torn off of his back. There was more resistance, perhaps a knife, or an arrow, and then a deafening crack followed by stunned silence. Suddenly Old Bishop lay dead, his tan skin paling as his lifeblood flowed out of a bullet hole and onto the dry summer grass.[3]
I imagine a shaky hand dropping the gun and a panicked yell ripping from the killer’s throat. I hope one of them bent over and wretched as the realization of their actions hit him. What were they going to do now? Confess and face not only discipline at Fort Utah, but also risk their families being antagonized by vengeful Utes? Perhaps they would have done so if they were better men. Instead, they set to work devising a way to hide their murder. Using a knife to open the corpse’s chest, they removed the entrails and stuffed the empty cavity with rocks so that when they threw the body into the river it sank. They hoped Old Bishop would stay there until nothing remained of him but the secret of his death.3
It was only a few days later though when the Utes discovered the body pushed up by the current against a fallen tree. The accusations, the denial, and the secret all boiled together in the valley until war broke out. Suddenly, because of three pioneer men, coexistence between settlers and Utes was no longer possible. By the next spring, one pioneer and over a hundred Timpanogos Utes had been killed. Nearly half of those Utes were shot while trying to flee the valley either across the frozen Utah lake to the west, or through Rock Canyon to the east. The natives that were not killed were either sold as servants in Salt Lake City or escaped to join other tribes - never to return to Utah valley again.[4]
Cries from the Forest
That night after Andrew had taken us to the clearing, a classmate and I decided to venture back out in the dark with the hopes of seeing the stars in a sky utterly untouched by light pollution. Flashlight in hand, I picked my way along a narrow forest trail, batting away spiderwebs and stumbling over roots. As we arrived at the clearing, we turned our flashlights off and eagerly looked up at the sky. Nothing but blackness loomed above. It must have been overcast. A bit disappointed, we stood there for a moment, immersed in the thick darkness, neither of us speaking. Although we were silent, the jungle certainly was not. Insects buzzed and clicked, birds called out to each other in a cacophonous chorus, and most unsettling, distant frogs croaked through the forest in a way that sounded like the shouts of a wounded human. For the first time since I was a little kid on my first camping trip, I felt genuinely afraid of the forest at night - of the darkness and of the unknown dangers lurking in the trees. I thought back on what Andrew had told us about the western forces bent on destroying this land. I thought about my home and Old Bishop. Suddenly those shouts I heard from the forest seemed to sound accusatory. They seemed to blame me for the forest’s pain, or at least to see me as a willing accomplice. Like some kind of twisted Moses, I felt like I was standing on holy ground, only to remove my shoes and find that it was my own flesh and blood that made me unworthy to stand there. I wanted to shout back at the jungle and explain that I was one of the good guys - that this time it would be different. The accusatory shouts of the forest continued unrelentingly - following me all the way back to the cabin and into my sleep.
Warriors and Story Tellers
The stories say that when Giki was thirteen years old, he snuck into the village of an enemy tribe and killed five people in their sleep with his spear. Professor Nuckolls explained that these days he has a reputation as a mighty warrior; she then added with a smile, “But he has a laugh like a little boy.” I thought that had a ring to it - Giki, the mighty warrior with a little boy’s laugh.
I met Giki on my second day in Geyepare. He came to our field station early in the morning to meet the newcomers. A plump middle-aged man no taller than 5’6”, he sported a red baseball cap, loose fitting shirt and pants, and big black rubber boots. Excited to finally meet a Waorani person, I eagerly approached him and stuttered out my best Waorani greeting - one of several that I had memorized during the long canoe ride in preparation for a situation such as this. “Waponi baneke!” Good morning! I declared. Laughing, Giki replied, “Waponi waponi” Good, good. It really was a little boy’s laugh. I laughed with him.
Giki’s youngest son Gawe hasn’t speared any enemy tribesmen, but he is a warrior in his own right. At nineteen years old, he is Geyepare’s youngest president - a role involving representing the community in interactions with government officials as well as oil and mining companies. In my first conversation with him, he told me about his hopes and goals for Geyepare. He wants to host scholars and students so that they can learn about his people and their way of life. He hopes that doing so will help them make friends who will advocate for them abroad. He wants to build a school in Geyepare so that the children don’t have to live in the city away from their families for half the year. Above all, he is determined to do everything in his power to keep their lands out of the hands of oil and mining companies.
Muipa is another of Giki’s sons. He is studying to become a schoolteacher and is working to compile a children’s book of traditional Waorani legends as well as stories about their ancestors. He hopes that in gathering and telling these stories, he can inspire a new generation of Waorani to fight for the preservation of their culture and way of life. On our third day in Geyepare, we went to visit Muipa and his mother Awana in their traditional Waorani longhouse. Gathered around a cookfire, Awana sang and wove baskets while Muipa told us stories. He told us about his experience leaving Geyepare to study in the capital, Quito. He spoke about the discrimination he faced there because of his indigenous background, and his determination to show the world that the Waorani aren’t the uncivilized savages that so many people believe them to be. Then he told us stories from before he was born. Beginning with tales of his ancestors, he then began to speak about the time when his people were first contacted by the outside world, and about the first outsider to live among them - Rachel Saint, the American missionary.
Blind Missionaries
Rachel Saint’s brother and four other missionaries were speared and killed by a group of Waorani men in the village of Toñampare after a failed first attempt at contacting the tribe. After news of their deaths reached Rachel, she felt herself “spiritually bonded” to the Waorani and subsequently chose to travel to the Amazon and dedicate the rest of her life to preaching the gospel to them. Risking her own life, she presented herself on the same beach where her brother had been killed and made a second attempt at contact. This time, the Waorani accepted her and Rachel’s ministry among them began. Living in their village, she learned their language, taught them about Jesus Christ, and even eventually converted the men who had killed her brother. Those present remember Rachel’s tears of joy as the three men were baptized in the Curaray river. Her bravery and selflessness is remarkable. How could anything but charity have motivated her to dedicate a life to serving the murderers of her brother - to risk her life in contacting them, to spend nearly 40 years in Toñampare away from the comforts of modernity, and to even request that her body be laid to rest there when she died in 1994? Today, almost every Waorani person knows her name. Her presence among them will forever be marked as a pivot point in the history of these people.[5]
But history has not been kind to Rachel Saint. These days, books and biographies portray her at best as a misguided fanatic and at worst as a cruel imperialist who destroyed the land and culture of every community she touched. Rachel Saint’s ministry introduced modern ideas and technologies to a people unprepared for things that we have had thousands of years to become accustomed to. She brought disease that crippled and killed the elderly, sugar that rotted the teeth of the children, and the idea that their culture and way of life was not only inferior to hers, but also offensive to God. She would withhold medical aid to individuals unless they committed to come to church. She would interrupt cultural celebrations in order to preach about the depravity of their people. She used her influence to eventually convince tribal elders to give large swaths of their lands to American oil companies. It was her efforts and those of her fellow missionaries that laid the groundwork for the fight over land occurring today.5
Difficult Reflections
I listened to Muipa’s story with an uneasy fascination. Over the next few weeks, through books, information from professors, and conversations with the locals, I learned everything I could about Rachel Saint and her legacy in Waorani territory. What I learned scared me - not necessarily because of the horrible consequences of Rachel’s actions, but rather because I couldn’t help but see myself in her story. I had been a missionary, and although my service was in Europe, not the Amazon, I felt like Rachel and I had far too many similarities in our stories. Ours was the story of a missionary who loved the people in concept and in principle, who sacrificed so much for them, but still couldn’t love them in practice. A missionary so focused on chasing the satisfaction of bringing someone to the gospel, that he forgot to bask in the joy of loving someone independent of a sense of duty to serve them. I was afraid that too much of that zeal was still inside me.
So, who was Rachel Saint? A selfless missionary or a modern conquistador? Even the Waorani will give mixed answers to that question. She stood nothing to gain from her lifelong ministry other than the belief of a reward in heaven. However, I also do not believe that it was charity that motivated Rachel either. I do not think that Rachel Saint knew the extent of the damage that her ministry would cause, and it's likely that such damage was inevitable - if not by Rachel’s hand, then perhaps by a more opportunistic and less christian individual. I think the only thing that could motivate her to sacrifice so much and still cause so much harm, is the burning desire to serve that every missionary knows far too well.
A Strange Lust
How can a desire to serve become at odds with the pure love of Christ? Doesn’t the scripture say, “how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served?” But the scriptures also imply that charity involves seeing and loving others as they really are. The issue isn’t something as obvious as viewing someone else as a project or a problem to be fixed. Clearly, that is not charity. The problem I’m trying to describe is often much subtler than that. It is loving someone for their imperfections - because those imperfections present an opportunity to serve. It is loving someone because you love the feeling of serving them. Suddenly that love has become selfish - a strange kind of lust that sees others as objects for personal satisfaction.
Shortly before traveling to Ecuador, I read Imbolo Mbue’s novel How Beautiful We Were. Written from the perspective of children in a fictitious African village, it depicts the impact of western influences set on either taking advantage of or helping the people in this community. Ringing in my ears throughout my entire time in Ecuador were the words of the village madman spoken to a child: “Someday when you’re old, you’ll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who’ll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or to give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.”
Was this what motivated Rachel Saint to dedicate her life to the Waorani? For what could be more gratifying than a life spent converting your brother’s murderers to the gospel? Is that why I came to Ecuador? Because I craved the sense of purpose that I had become addicted to during my own time as a missionary?
The Kitchens
On the first night at the field school, my zeal for service was burning strong. I had noticed how hard the women in the school’s kitchen seemed to work all day, and I had an idea. As soon as I finished my dinner, I gathered up my dishes and hurried as fast as I could down the rough cedar wood steps to the kitchen where three Quichua women were toiling over several basins filled with water and dirty dishes. Walking through the kitchen door, I approached one of the women, and in my best attempt I could manage at their language, asked her: “Yanapayta munangichichu?” Do you want any help? I’m not sure how I was expecting her to react. Maybe I hoped for a wide grateful smile, praise for my thoughtfulness, and a sign that I had won their good graces. I probably imagined laughing and smiling with them as we scrubbed dishes, the language barrier miraculously overcome as they told me their life’s stories. Instead, after asking if I could help, she just looked at me, a little confused, and said, “Mana. Mana munanchichu” No. No, we don't want any help. Fully unprepared for such a blunt rejection, all I could do was nod my head and walk away disappointedly.
These women were so much more practiced at genuine human connection than we are in our modern, isolated, superficial, western culture. Like catching a toddler in a lie, they saw right through my shallow attempt to buy their friendship through cheap acts of service. They saw it before I even realized it myself.
The Anointing
I found out their names were Beljica, Elodia, and Old Elodia. They were up every day before the sun, cleaning dishes and preparing food for the day’s meals. Each morning, I would wake to the sound of their giggling chatter filtering down through the thin floorboards. Although being woken up so early annoyed me at first, it was hard to stay irritated for long when the people waking me were the women who were literally cooking our meals and doing our dishes. Some mornings, I would try to go back to sleep, but most times, I would go upstairs to see what the laughter was all about. While many of their conversations were unintelligible to me, I’d pick out familiar phrases here and there.
“Ñaña, imata muskungi?” Sister, what did you dream about? Asks Beljica in her high pitched, lilting way of speaking.
“Hm hm, imata chari muskuni?” Hmm, what did I dream about? Replies Elodia rhetorically with a smile. Then they break into laughter and the conversation continues too fast for me to understand anything else.
I’d often ask them if they needed any help, but most days the answer was no, and so I’d simply sit at the table, listening and pondering.
One morning though, I awoke in the predawn light, not to laughter from the kitchens, but sharp pain in my right foot. Limping out of bed, I opened the door to allow more light to reveal an angry red blister on my ankle and a pink swollen foot. Trying not to think about what kind of amazonian bacteria may have taken up residence in my ankle, I moved to the sink and tried to wash the wound as best as I could. Eventually though, I simply staggered upstairs to the kitchen as usual, trying to ignore the aching of my foot. Old Elodia was already there preparing some fruit and when she caught me limping over to a chair, she put down her knife, walked over to me and asked what was wrong. Not wanting to bother her, I tried to communicate to her that everything was fine, but she wouldn’t budge. Finally, I simply pointed to my ankle and said, “Ñuka chaki nanawan” My foot hurts. Then, without even giving me a chance to protest, Old Elodia crouched on the ground and began prodding at the sore, clicking her tongue in disapproval and asking me why I didn’t tell her sooner. Before I could answer, she hurried to her room and returned with a small container of ointment. It looked expensive and almost empty. But sparing nothing, she scooped out the ointment and began to delicately spread it around the swollen regions of my foot. Uncaring of the puss and blood oozing from the sore, Old Elodia gently massaged the wound with her old, gnarled fingers until the ointment had sunk deep into the tissue. Then carefully, she wrapped my foot with paper towels and made me promise to tell her if it still hurt at the end of the day.
“[And] Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”
Old Elodia Dances
A few hours after Old Elodia had treated my sore, it was announced that she wanted to go into the forest with the students to show us some special plants. My foot still hurt, but not wanting to miss out on anything, I donned my rubber boots with everyone else and followed Old Elodia down a narrow jungle path. Machete in one hand and a bucket in the other, she cut her way through the dense vegetation, sometimes pausing to place various cuttings in her bucket. Ducking under vines and crossing streams over fallen logs, we walked past giant ferns and vibrant flowers. After about a half hour, Old Elodia stopped and motioned for us to gather around a small tree. Pointing at the bulbous green fruits hanging from the trunk, she explained that this tree was an ugly man with warts all over him. Placing her bucket and machete to the side, she told us that anytime we see this tree, we need to dance for it, so that he feels better about himself. Then, untying her tight bun, she let down her hair and Old Elodia danced.
Gripping her skirts with old, wrinkled hands, she swished her hair and swayed her hips and, in that moment, she looked decades younger. While ten students looked on, her true audience was that ugly little tree as she danced and danced and danced. Then, as quickly as it began, it was finished. Suddenly her hair was back in that tight little bun, and she was walking through the forest again, machete in hand. I followed her, thoughts spinning. What kind of person goes around trying to cheer up ugly trees? The same kind of person who uses up the last of her ointment to help a random American boy she barely knows.
As we walked back to the cabin, I realized that I no longer felt as wary of the forest as I had on that first night in the clearing - when the shouts from the jungle seemed to declare my unworthiness. Instead, it was as if Elodia’s ointment had been a ritual cleansing. The forest was still hallowed ground, but I finally felt worthy to trod there. Arriving back at the cabin, I realized something else. My foot no longer hurt. Removing my boot and carefully peeling back the paper towel bandage, I saw that the swelling was gone and instead of an angry red sore, there was pink flesh. Healing was underway.
Learning to be Taught
Now, I sit on the banks of the Provo River next to what is now Fort Utah Park. It has been months since I watched Geyepare slip out of sight behind a river bend for the last time as we sped back up the Curaray river. Much of what I learned in the Amazon is still a tangled swirl of thoughts and emotion.
As I watch the Provo carry fallen autumn leaves around a bend, my thoughts turn to Old Bishop. I figure that it probably wasn’t far from where I sit that he was murdered. Where Stoddard, Ivie, and Zabriskie shattered any hopes of peaceful coexistence with the Utes - of Zion in Utah Valley. Looking to my right, I see the chain-link fence of a trailer park, and I think of the commandment to have no poor among us. Ironic that here lies yet another reminder of that shattered hope. Searching my heart though, I realize that the deep shame I once felt for the sins of my fathers is no longer there. Sadness for the tragedy still remains, but the sense of unworthiness has been replaced with a sense of duty - a duty to learn and, where possible, to be taught by those who have been wronged.
Perhaps that is where Rachel Saint went wrong - not in her desire to teach, but rather in her refusal to be taught - to be served by the people she so desperately wanted to save. For how can any relationship truly built upon charity be so one-sided? It was Jesus who not only washed Peter’s feet but also allowed his own feet to be anointed by Mary and wiped with her hair.
My thoughts turn to Ecuador - to Geyepare and my friends, to Giki and Muipa and Old Elodia. I wonder what they could teach us about Zion. They certainly have their fair share of poverty, violence, and hardship, but despite all of that they have community. Although Dr. Nuckolls seemed to discourage such speculation, I wonder if it were their fathers of whom it was written that “there could not [have been] a happier people… created by the hand of God.”[6]
Sometimes as I seek to serve others, my craving for purpose still emerges, but I try to counter that with a desire to learn. I try to serve others with the hope that I can, in some small way, see the world through their eyes. Rather than seeking self-gratification, I seek to understand. Perhaps that is still not the pure love of Christ that charity demands of us, but it is one step closer and the best I can do for now.
Sources
Farmer, Jared. On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Handley, George B. Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2014.
Mbue, Imbolo. How Beautiful We Were. New York: Random House, 2022.
Nenquimo, Nemonte, and Mitch Anderson. We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People. New York: Abrams Press, 2024.
The Holy Bible. Authorized King James Version. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
[1] Farmer, On Zion’s Mount, 1837.
[2] Farmer, On Zion’s Mount, 1837.
[3] Handley, Home Waters, 72.
[4] Farmer, On Zion’s Mount, 1837.
[5] Nenquimo and Anderson, We Will Be Jaguars.
[6] The Book of Mormon, 4 Nephi 1:16