The
following text includes comments from two separate interviews.
Steve
Saint is the son of Nate Saint, a missionary who was killed
by the Waodani. He has been working extensively with the Waodani
throughout his life to help them develop and modernize their
culture.
Mart
Green is the CEO, Founder, and Executive Producer for Every
Tribe Entertainment, a full feature film production company
which produced Beyond the Gates of Splendor.
I
wish to extend my sincere thanks to these men for their time
and stories!
Interviewer:
I’ve got to tell you, everybody I talk
to, when I tell them about the film, the first thing they say
is, “Are you sure? They weren’t mad at them? They
didn’t have any resentment? The storyline they accept,
and then that’s the first trip up. I’m sure that’s
the reaction you get, though”
 Steve Saint: The
question people usually ask me is “How did you forgive these people? And really, the
honest truth is I didn’t. I mean, it never occurred to me,
really, that there was anything to forgive. Now, that wasn’t
because of some great altruism. It was just that before my dad
was killed, I remembered how excited Dad was, hoping to be able
to contact these people so that they wouldn’t be killed by
the oil companies or the government. And then after my dad was
killed, you know, kids follow their parent’s clues. I mean,
you sit around and your dad’s cheering because some guy just
knocked the stuffings out of someone else trying to catch a football
in the air, and what do you say? …I mean, that’s brutal,
but you grow up thinking, “That’s great, man, what
a great hit!” …My aunt loved these people. She was
willing to risk her life to go and live with them. My mom was praying
for them, my dad…I just couldn’t wait to meet them.
I think it’s just a heritage that people don’t understand… So,
um, I can tell you this, I watched very carefully, I watched my
mom and these other four women and I never, ever, ever noticed
or sensed any resentment. Now sad, oh, yeah, I mean their lives,
can you imagine how devastated? I was devastated. My hero, I watched
him fly off into the jungles one morning and he never came back… I
never saw any resentment or anger towards the Waodani and I never
saw any resentment or anger towards God, which is even maybe the
bigger deal.
Interviewer:
How many years did you live with the Waodani when you were
young?
 Steve Saint: You
know we like to make stories grander than they are. I first went
in to live with my aunt with the Waodani when I was nine and
it would have been in the summer. And then I went to school up
in Quito in the capital city. So, I only got to go out there
summers, Christmas vacation and sometimes in between. But, I
never spent years and years with the Waodani…The
man who had started that airlines was a friend of my dad’s.
He had helped him keep his planes running. So, I could just go
out, jump on the plane, didn’t have to have a ticket or anything,
and just fly down to the jungles and visit my Aunt Rachel. And
I loved doing it. I mean, hunting and fishing every day. No rules.
Nobody except Aunt Rachel to tell me what to do, and she couldn’t
walk that well, so…(laughter). She spent her life
with the Waodani…
Interviewer:
Talk a little bit about the fact that now it’s your son
that gets to go back….now there’s
a third generation that’s had contact.
Steve
Saint: Fourth!
My parents, mine, and my sisters and brothers, and some of the
other kids. Although I have had much, much more contact than
any of the others…I was
in the second generation. Then, Jenny’s and my children loved
the Waodani, and the Waodani just absolutely loved them. Especially,
well, they all have been given tribal names. Then, our grandchildren…in
fact, I’m going down Thursday because we have a new grandchild.
Actually, we have two new grandchildren, and the Waodani DEMAND
to see them. (laughter)
Interviewer:
How many of the Waodani have come to the U.S. now?
Steve Saint: …Oh actually about 10…my
aunt came up with Kimo and Dawa and Dayuma. And then Gikita has
been here, and I’ve come with Tementa and Mincaye. There’s
been three or four more that have come with environmental people.
And there may be some others that I don’t know about. But,
you know, just a few. Mincaye has been the only one who’s
come up here and really traveled. He’s been up here with
me six times, been in Canada four times and been in Europe once.
Which, if you want to know what our country’s really like,
then you need to travel with Mincaye. (laughter) He’d
be afraid to get on the elevator. Escalators are terrifying…Those
stories go on and on. I was telling Randy about going to a football
game. I’d better not start that! (laughter)
Interviewer: What would you say inspired this film? Did
you want to do a film on it? How did the film actually start
taking shape?
Steve Saint: When
my son Jessie was graduating from high school, he and Stephanie
wanted me to bring grandfather Mincaye up for the graduation…which is totally impossible.
He had no passport and no visa, and those people, I mean, I’m
an Ecuadorian citizen...and I have been trying to renew my Ecuadorian
passport. I’ve had an attorney working on it for a year and
a half. And so, to get that passport, you have to have served in
the Ecuadorian military…you have to go through a lot of
rigamarole and red tape to do it…and so, it was impossible
and we had one day to do it [get Mincaye’s passport]. I was
just gonna make a token effort and get turned down.
And
when we went down to the U.S. Embassy and I was filling out the
form, they wanted to know your full name. And Mincaye’s
full name is Mincaye…they want to know where your bank account
is. The only bank Mincaye knows is where he pulls his canoe up…they
want to know what your profession is, and there was nothing, address,
telephone number. The only thing I could find to fill out on the
whole thing was occupation, so I put “hunter/ gatherer.” And
we were number ga-zillion. The consulate was just packed with people… I
heard somebody [worker behind the bulletproof glass] say, “Hey,
get a load of this. Occupation hunter/gatherer.” …So
we went up and said, “Did you call for the hunter gatherers?” He
said, “What’s your number? Oh, no, you won’t
even get an interview today.”…but the Consulate was
walking by…and he said, “I’ll take this interview.” So
the Consulate himself sat down and started asking me questions.
He said, “You know, I was in the Peace Corps here years ago.
I read about some people who killed some missionaries…Everybody
is always worried about what happened to the people on this side,
but I always wondered what happened to those people that killed
the missionaries.” And I said, “Well, one of them is
looking at you through the bullet proof glass.”…He
asked, “Why do you want to take the man who killed your father
to the states?” You know, looking for some exploitation or
something…And he said, “I’ll tell you what,
I’m going to have to stick my neck out a long way to do this…but
if you’ll come back this afternoon when the consulate closes,
I’ll give you a one-time visa on the condition that you travel
with him.” …That was ten o’clock in the morning
and we had until three o’clock in the afternoon when the
consulate closed. And [we] got all those papers, really, years
worth of paperwork in five hours and got back there and got a visa
and came to the states.
After
the graduation, I had a speaking engagement up in Pennsylvania.
I was going to speak about this story. I thought, boy, I’m
going to go up there and speak about this. Mincaye is right here!
So, I said, “Hey, let’s make a road trip.”…That
first time that we spoke together, a businessman in the auditorium
heard us speak. He started thinking about Columbine and some of
the things, I mean… read the newspaper! He said, “People
here are living just like Mincaye…” Mart [Green] thought, “Our
culture needs to hear this too.”
Mart Green: The
first time that I met Steve and Mincaye would have been June
14, 1997. It was at a Wycliffe associates meeting….I was there in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and heard
them speak, and just was amazed. I had heard the Through Gates
of Splendor. I knew the story pretty much from the N. American
point of view, and knew about Jim Elliot and loved the story, but
never really thought about what happened to the six guys that killed
the five. Where are they at? Kinda what I’d call… the
other side of the story. And so I hear Steve speak and all of a
sudden he brings up on stage one of the six guys who killed the
five, one of the men who killed his dad…I knew that the
oldest person in 1956 was 33 in the tribe. So, this was, you know,
almost forty something years later. You have to assume they were
all dead, because they didn’t live to be 33 years old. And
then he brings up Tementa, which he was also in the story at the
end there… So it was quite impacting to see the man standing
on stage with the man who was responsible for his dad’s death
[Mincaye], and the other one who was the son of the man who lied
who caused his death [Tementa]. And he’s got his arms around
him, and generally seemed to really love these guys. And when you
hear his story of how he moved his family to go live with them,
I mean, this is not some, “I’ll forgive you, but I
hope I never see you again” kind of story. It’s, “I’ll
forgive you and I’m gonna move my family, four kids, with
no electricity and running water to Ecuador and live in a hut with
you.” So I guess the word “reconciliation,” down
to one word, it was the most amazing reconciliation story I’d
probably heard.
My
passion is four words: I’m on planet earth
for four words: This
Book is Alive -- meaning God’s Word. I believe
this Book is alive. I believe the best way to portray that is
through the life you live, and Mincaye was one of the greatest
examples I’d ever heard of going from the most violent
societies to living in peace. It was God’s Word that transformed
his life.
So,
little did I know that I’d get involved in the project.
At that point, I assumed the guy in Tulsa would just get the tape,
listen to it, and God would move on his heart to make the movie.
But that’s not the way it went.
Interviewer: So, how did you end up with the project on
your hands?
Mart Green: It
was October of the next year, of 1998, when a guy [in Tulsa,
OK] told me he really hoped to make a movie of that story someday,
talking about what I’d call
the North American story…So I sent him that tape to listen
to of that event [Steve and Mincaye’s speech at Wycliffe].
I thought, well, I’d better listen to that tape again, so
I was re-listening to that tape, and was driving down the road
and Mincaye said, “We acted badly, badly.” - which
they did. They were the most violent society ever recorded. There’s
nobody more violent than the Waodani – 60% homicide rate
for five generations…So, “We acted badly, badly until
they brought us God’s carvings…” which is what
Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint represented when they went back
in. “…and now we walk his trail.” So, I literally
just wept in the parking lot and called my friend. I said, “This
is going to be a movie someday, but it’s not going to be
a movie about what I call the ten American heroes, that being the
five men and the five women. It won’t be about the ten American
heroes’ story. It’ll be- what happened to the six guys
that killed the five.”
…[Six months later in 1999] I was actually working on a
commercial campaign. I call it a “Milk Campaign on God’s
Word.” That’s the best way I can explain it… All
I knew was, wow, would this movie about God’s Word transforming
the most violent society help our cause! I’m not gonna do
it, but if this guy will do it, he’ll help my cause...Well,
on May 9, 1999, the guy I called from the Wal-mart parking lot,
the president of the four Bible Agencies, had asked for a copy
of the tape too…He listens to the tape and he says, “Man,
I’ve been listening to the tape and I’ve been weeping.
You gotta do the movie.”…I said, “Yeah, yeah,
I remember that. I told you the guy in Tulsa - that was his dream…call
him, don’t call me.” So, he challenged me to get Steve
Saint’s address….
I
said, “I’m not gonna call Steve Saint out of the
blue. I mean, this is the most well-known missionary over the last
hundred years. I just saw him from the audience. I don’t
know Steve. I think he lives in Ecuador, and besides that, I was
raised not to go to movies. I’ve never been in a movie theater.
So, I’m not calling him.” So, I no more hung up and
the next phone call is my guy from Wycliffe. If I’m going
to call and get Steve Saint’s address, the guy that I would
call is on the phone right now. And I knew my conscience - I can’t
go to sleep tonight if I don’t at least ask this guy for
Steve Saint’s address…of course, I’m hoping
he can’t get it... And of course, three hours later, I’ve
got Steve Saint’s address…So, ironically, two years
to the night, to June 14, 1997, on June 14, 1999, two years, to
the day, to the night, I’m in Steve Saint’s home asking
for the right to do the film.
On
the Waodani’s unwillingness to
do the film…
Steve Saint: [Talking
to Mart Green that night in 1999] I said, “Everybody starts here. Nobody thinks about
asking the Waodani their part of the story. I’ll tell you
what, if you want to ask them, I’ll take you down there,
introduce you and I’ll translate.”…They all
came with me and we asked the Waodani and the Waodani said, “No.”
They
said, “The foreigners always, always come. They want
to take pictures of us, they want to take video…but they
don’t talk to us. Then, they go and tell what they want to
say about us. So, we say no.”…I said, “Let me
tell you why they want to do this.” And I told them what
had happened in Columbine that these two boys had gone in “ononke”,
for no reason, and just started killing other people. And Mincaye
said, “That’s JUST how we used to live. For no reason,
we just speared and speared, hating and afraid. We were killing
everybody. I say, are the foreigners living like that?” Of
course, he had been up here already…he just kept asking
to see documentaries of the foreigners killing each other. And
he’d watch and he’d just shake his head. He said, “We
would kill people that we hated, but we would never kill people
that we never knew. Why would you kill somebody that you didn’t
hate?” And yet, he’d see bombers flying over and he’d
say, “How can you see those people that you’re killing?” And
then he saw the concentration camps and he was so repulsed by that,
that he couldn’t even deal with it. That someone would keep
somebody alive and not feed them, that was beyond his comprehension…so
he said, “If the foreigners are living that way, then you
tell them, you show them how we used to live. And then you show
them that now, look, we live happily and at peace.”
…I thought, “I need to warn them. If you say yes,
they’re going to show you like you used to live, naked with
just a string with your earplugs in.”- which was embarrassing
to them. Because they knew, they weren’t embarrassed of being
naked, but they were embarrassed of what people thought of them.
The people called them Auca’s which means “naked savages.” The
connotation is almost animal-like. I said, “They will show
you like you were.”…Mincaye’s wife, Ompodae,
has been listening to this. She whips off her blouse, pulls off
her skirt, she’s sitting there in her little panties and
all the film crew’s kinda looking around. She said, “If
they have to show us like we were, I say do it. But look at us
now. You tell them to tell them how we live in peace.”
Mincaye
killed Ompodae’s family and took her forcibly to
be his wife. Kimo had led the spearing party to kill Dawa’s
family, Dabo had killed...Everybody sitting there, they all had
reasons to hate each other. So, it really was an incredible transformation.
They should have killed me when I was a kid. They knew that I would
grow up to want to avenge my father’s death, so they should
have killed me too.
About
the story’s perspective…
Mart Green: I
said, there’s one thing I
will not compromise on, and that’s the way the story’s
told. I’m gonna tell them, “We acted badly, badly until
they brought us God’s carvings. And now we walk his trail.” And
if you think back to documentary, that’s what act one was, “We
acted badly, badly…” We told you how they lived. And
then act two is when Rachel and them come in and bring God’s
Word. “And now we walk His trail,”- you saw them actually
flying the plane and trying to create their own culture. That became
act one, act two, act three and the flagpole that I said “I
will not let go of.” And I don’t want to tell your
dad’s story, I don’t want to tell Wycliffe’s
story…
The
first three movie scripts, I rejected all three of them because
they became the North American story. I kept saying, “Now,
look, I know it’s impossible to tell the South American point
of view, but I can’t do it any other way. I have no choice.
We’re going to have to figure out a way to do it.”
The
nature and origin of the documentary…
Mart Green: Now,
the documentary obviously is very broad. It’s a lot of people’s
point of view. When you get down to the movie [End of the Spear,
the feature film on which the documentary is based], it gets down
to Mincaye and Steve. And that’s really my passion – the
movie. Now, along the way, Bill Ewing challenged me to do a documentary.
I thought, “We’ve busted on three scripts. I’m
tired of not succeeding, so let’s DO something. Let’s
do a documentary.” Then Jim Hanon shot an hour and a half
piece that wound up turning out a whole lot better than I could
have ever imagined.
Interviewer: Why did you release the documentary before
the feature? Or has the feature been released, just not here?
Mart Green: The
movie’s going to be released
next January. Now, the fiftieth anniversary of this event is January
2006. It happened in 1956. So, we’re going to leverage that
to a broad audience.
Interviewer: You were obviously in retail before, so have
you redirected into film or are you doing both?
Mart Green: I
started Mardel Christian Bookstores when I was 19 yeas old. I
quit college and started, so I did that for 23 years and this
past June, I named a new president and took the title of CEO…I am taking a much more active role in
Every Tribe because it’s brand new. So, more of my time is
spent there.
Interviewer: Are you looking to do documentaries or feature
films in the future?
Mart Green: Feature
films, but documentaries become part of the marketing strategy.
Just like you make a trailer or you make a commercial…The next film, we want to do on
the persecuted church in China, but we’ll do a video on the
persecuted church of the world. See what I’m saying? What
is happening in our world today while we’re sitting here
in North America and people are being persecuted for their faith.
It’s happening all over the world….and then we’d
have a feature film. But again, that would be very focused. We
would tell a story of a little boy in China. We would take one
of many, many stories and make a film out of that. African AIDS
is what we hope to be our next one...we want to make feature films,
and if the documentary serves that purpose, so be it.
We’re
making it [End of the Spear]
into the Chariot’s of Fire model, that’s what I say.
It’s a great story. Yeah, it’s faith-based, but it’s
a great story FIRST. Then it’s faith-based second. So, that’s
our passion in film.
Interviewer: The feature film End of the Spear will
use actors for the main roles, right?
Mart Green: Yeah,
we shot it in Panama, but we did use an indigenous tribe so most
of the Waodani, who were Ecuadorian of course, were played by
people that were in huts that we canoed down. Now, the lead guy
that played Mincaye is a North American actor. Three of the major
parts that are playing the Waodani are by North American professional
actors. All the rest of them were non-actors that did an incredible
job. It was so fun because we used an indigenous tribe to play
an indigenous tribe…The
documentary, now, those will be the real stories. Here are the
real people telling the real story, and here’s what they
told us and here’s exactly what it is. It will be a great
follow-up piece when people say, “I don’t even believe
that.” You know, parts of the story are even better than
what we could even tell in a film…At the end of the feature
film, when the credits are rolling, you’ll see parts of the
documentary…at the end you get to see the real Steve, the
real Mincaye, and it just brings it home once again.”
What other projects do you have on your plate?
Mart Green: We
feel like we’ve got the
first five. One, you’ve already seen the documentary. The
second one is the persecuted church in China. The third is Africa
AIDS, which will be based on an orphan city we’re going to
visit through the year this year. Basically, I can get them down
to one word. The first story is on Reconciliation. The
second story will be based on Freedom. In other words,
the guys in prison have more freedom than the guys that are holding
them captive. That doesn’t sound right, that doesn’t
make sense, but in their spirit, there’s more freedom being
behind bars than not behind bars. We use birds and cages as another
symbol of being caged, but being free…Africa AIDS, the word
for that will be Truth. The Africans have been lied to
through slavery, through all these different years, they’ve
been lied to. And right now, there are a lot of lies happening
with the AIDS issues. So, the Truth will set you free.
And then we want to tell a story about Islam and then we want to
tell a story about post-modern…Those are the five that the
Lord’s laid on our hearts and our challenge is to go find
them.
Did you see any other miracles associated with this film,
other than Mincaye getting his passport, which Steve told us
about?
Mart Green: Well,
a couple of things happened and I’ll send you the stories.
(Link here to read about the ANGELS and the AIRPLANE)
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