Steve Saint

I had the unique opportunity this past Sunday evening (last night) to see Steve Saint and "Grandfather" Mambajmi (? ok I don't remember the name... it just won't stick, anyway, the tribe's man who killed Steve Saint's dad Nate Saint and is now the "grandfather" to steve's children) speek live at Jefferson Baptist Church. It was crazy. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about you should really go see the End of the Spear or read Through Gates of Spleandor by Elizabeth Elliot. It's an amazing story. Bethany mentioned it in her blog a few weeks ago. It made me all the more excited to go to Ecuador! So anyway, Steve and Grandfather came and spoke and it was really cool - and then I went and saw the movie with my mom tonight, although I was already fairly familiar with the story before that. Steve gave a great talk about how it's not us who writes the stories of our lives but God who does, and he talked about people think he's so special because people know who he is and he had an abnormal (to say the least) upbringing, but he insisted that each of our "stories" was just as important as long as we're living out what God wants us to do. Yeah, a little cheesy maybe, but a really good point coming from him. Then the best part was when grandfather came and told the gospel in tribal "people talk" his tribal language (he doesn't speak any other) with Steve interpreting. It was really powerfull to hear the gospel in these simple, Christianees free, terms.
Some other highlights of the talk were little stories Steve had about what it was like for Grandfather to expeirence the Western world for the first time - not being able to understand why we sleep on beds, or what a watch is - that was a cute story. Grandfather asks what the "wrist things" are and Steve explains that the foreigners live in houses so they have to wear a thing on their wrist to tell where the sun is in the sky and Grathfather says "no that cannot be all that they are because I have seen the foreigners and they always look down at the wrist thing and then they look scared." It was really facinating actually - like if you've ever wondered what an alien would think if they landed in our culture... well that's basically the reaction you get from a person who has lived their whole life in the rain forest in ecuador with virtually no contact with the outside world.
Gosh, there's a lot more I could say about this... I mean I got to see Steve Saint speak live! But it's not coming to me. Ask me if you want to come back to it more later.

In other, less pleasant, news: my brother's girlfriend broke up with him again - didn't see that one coming! I'm not being sarcastic there, I really didn't. Poor boy, but my parents say he's taking it really well this time (they broke up for a few months just before this and had only been back together for about a month). I'm sad for him. I hate to see people get their hearts hurt. I really hate it.