"GIKITA TOUCHES A HEART" - Judy Maxwell

In this, Our Saviour Lutheran's third interview showing how the Gospel impacted peoples' lives as a result of the Palm Beach killings, we now hear from Judy Maxwell. Judy had the honor of meeting Gikita before becoming a Christian and, as his life touched hers, she saw her own need of Christ. This account is in a running-story format.

Our Saviour Lutheran: JUDY, CAN YOU TELL US HOW YOU HAPPENED TO BE IN ECUADOR?

Judy: In October 1963, I went to Ecuador in search of a new life after my brief marriage ended. Taking my year-old daughter Gisella, I sailed from Liverpool, England not knowing what work I would do there. The previous year, I had been private secretary to the Ambassador of Ecuador in London. The following year I worked for the Ecuadorian Consul. Then when a military junta deposed the President of Ecuador they recalled his diplomats. Suddenly I was without work. The Consul's wife suggested I start afresh in Ecuador. She might as well have said, "Why don't you go to the moon?"

However, my father paid our fare and five weeks later, I started a three-week voyage into an unknown life 8000 miles away alone with a child.

Aboard the 'Queen of the Sea', a missionary doctor and his wife befriended me. Bound for Peru, Noel and Eileen Greenhalgh spent their afternoons on deck reading the Bible in Spanish.

"How boring" I thought, but Spanish is my favourite language. Their friendship and those beautiful words gripped me. Just before leaving London, a producer on the BBC cultural program had shown interest in my translation of Federico Garcia Lorca's Flemenco poems with guitar accompaniment. Languages and travel became my passion. At school, I had passed Advanced Level French, German and Latin with Ordinary Level Italian. Then at the French Institute in London, I had also studied Russian.

At 19, I became an interpreter/translator and started my working life at an electronics exhibition in Rome. Afterwards I interpreted for the directors of my firm on frequent journeys to Paris and later from French to German at an exhibition in Duesseldorf. In between journeys, I translated technical specifications for instruments used in aircraft and nuclear reactors. At 21, I was offered an interpreting job in Paris. Weary of engineering and the commercial world, I declined. Words for words' sake were not enough. I sought a message.

Now, in 1963, in mid-Atlantic, on the deck of the "Queen of the Sea" a glimmer of a message pierced my word-weary mind as Eileen read me Hebrews Chapter One in Spanish. Then, while Gisella played with Peruvian children and our ship gently rolled, she told me the "Palm Beach" story. Something fired within me. "Here is an event of great importance!" I thought, not knowing why.

Then Eileen told me, "Marj Saint, widow of the pilot Nate, serves at the Vozandes Hospital in Quito. We'll put you in touch if you like."

Early the following year the phone rang in the United Nations office where I sat typing a report in Spanish.

"Judy, this is Marj Saint. Eileen Greenhalgh wrote that you had arrived in Quito with a little daughter. Would you like to come and see a film at my house?" In the misery of my loneliness, how could I resist that friendly voice? I quickly accepted.

The footage found in Nate's camera after he was killed on Palm Beachmade a deep impression on me. I understood that the five men *had* to die and their widows forgive the Waorani [Auca] to break their endless chain of revenge. I did not see how the event applied to me but, I wondered, "How could Marj forgive the Waorani for spearing her husband?" Each time strangers asked about my husband, my story became more bitter.

Later that year, a Brazilian/Costa Rican couple in the United Nations invited me and Gisella for a weekend on the seacoast in Manta. Returning to Quito, I succumbed to hepatitis. Then, while recuperating, Marj Saint took me to her house and nursed me. It was there, in the house of his widow that I read "Jungle Pilot", Nate's biography. It was like walking into their lives. But, Marj was a mystery to me. Where did she get her strength? At 7am, she was helping Phil get ready for school while Kathy finished homework and Steve did his piano practice. One morning a week she held a Bible study in her home. Other mornings, ladies from all levels of society came for comfort and advice. In the afternoons, Marj worked at HCJB's Voice of the Andes Hospital and evenings, she attended to her childrens' needs and sometimes had guests to see the film. One day, a pilot arrived, having ferried a Cessna down from the USA for MAF. It was Johnny Keenan who had led the air search for the five men after Palm Beach. I pounded him with questions.

After that, I read "The Dayuma Story" telling how she returned to the Waorani with a message of life and love. Again something fired within me as I read Dayuma's rendering of the story of David and Goliath [1 Samuel 17] in the context of Waorani spearing and revenge. Dayuma taught her people that if they love Father God, they will not spear their enemies. I had been wondering how the Waorani had stopped spearing. Moving 8000 miles to a new countinent had not set me free from bitterness and fear. "Dayuma's message must work," I thought.

Over the Christmas, New Year holidays 1964-65, I was due for time off but was at a loss to know where to go alone with a little girl. I phoned Marj Saint who invited us to her home on the HCJB compound. When we arrived, her MAF guests Cecil and Colleen Davis greeted us, welcomed us to a meal and invited us to spend our holiday with them in Shell Mera.

We flew from Quito to Shell in a commercial DC-3. Nestling on the edge of the jungle stood the Davis' wooden home, opposite the guest house Nate had built by the MAF hangar. Holding Gisella's hand, I walked up to the bougainvillea-covered porch where Colleen welcomed us warmly.

On their living room wall, a blank picture made a deep impression on me. On the lower edge of the white paper, Cecil had lettered 1 Peter 1:8, "Whom having not seen you love". I did not know Jesus then but I felt His presence there. In the corner of the room, sat a green canvas bucket - Nate's! That and a deep sense of the Presence of God formed two strong clues in my search for the Truth.

After months of eating alone with a little girl too young to converse how I loved the family laughter at Colleen's delicious meals! By 7am she was on the two-way radio receiving weather reports, news of emergencies for hospital or grocery orders. Cecil readied the Cessna for his flights of the day. I helped Colleen load woven baskets with grocery orders for Cecil to deliver to missionaries in distant jungle villages. Gisella played with a tame monkey.

Cecil flew me and Gisella to spend a weekend with Mary Skinner at Puyupungu. [Mary had gone out to Ecuador with "Echoes of Service", the British equivalent of "Christian Missions in Many Lands" with whom Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming and Ed McCully served.] As the plane revved for takeoff, Quichua children stood behind, dark hair flying in the prop-wash. Mary was full of fun. We loved her. Young Quichua friends of her's steered us through rapids in a canoe. On a clear day, Mary's house looked over the silver Pastaza River up to Andean snow peaks. This was the place where Jim and Elisabeth Elliot had started their married life. Then Pete and Olive Fleming lived there until Palm Beach.

In Puyupungu, I began to read "Shadow of the Almighty", Elisabeth Elliot's biography of Jim. Deeply impressed by Jim's writings, a passionate lover of the Lord Jesus: poet, linguist, scholar - yet builder and wrestler - I began a diary of my search for the One who had motivated Jim.

On Saturday evening in Puyupungu a canoe load of Quichua believers arrived at Mary's thatched house on stilts. Amazed to hear they had travelled ten hours to sing hymns, I thought that would be boring and went to bed to read by candlelight but the sweet singing drew mother and daughter. I found I knew the tunes and so joined in, almost feeling a kinship with those dark-eyed young people who loved Mary so much. Late that evening, Mary tuned in to the BBC World Service and learned that Winston Churchill had died. Thinking of the five mens' deaths, now Churchill's, I knew I was not ready to die.

Back at Shell Mera, Charlotte Swanson, wife of Dr Wally at the Epp Memorial Hospital invited us for tea. Still driven by my search for truth and love, I felt as though caught in a dry yellow desert on that day. Charlotte's boys proudly unravelled their 30 foot boa skin. I preferred the books that lined her sitting room. Charlotte read me the story of the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at Jacob's well in John Chapter Four. Then she challenged me, "What holds you from trusting the Lord Jesus?"

"I write poetry," I found myself answering. "I'm afraid He will take away the gift."

"God does not give a gift only to take it away," answered Charlotte. "Fill your heart and mind with Scripture and it will pour out of you." Then she read me John 7:37b-8, "'Whoever is thirsty... let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, from within him - as the Scripture has said - rivers of living water shall flow.'" [Weymouth's translation.]

How thirsty those words made me! How I longed for those rivers of living water to flow into the desert of my heart! How I longed for words with a message that would bring meaning into life as it had done for the Waorani.

Colleen, observing how I dreaded returning to the loneliness of single parenthood, gave me the phone number of Esther Reimer, secretary in the Christian and Missionary Alliance Office in Quito. Esther invited me to lunch with a group of lady missionaries then listened daily on the phone to my worries and woes. Her gentle voice calmed me. She had the same assurance as the five men. She knew if she died she would go straight into Jesus' presence. She seemed to be looking forward to that but enjoyed walking and talking with Him on earth. Esther made me even thirstier for Christ.

January 1965, I started work for the French Director of the United Nations Mineral Project. They were doing an aeromagnetic survey of Ecuador to find where minerals lay. I worked in French, Spanish and English. Another secretary lent me "Through Gates of Splendour" which I devoured. In Ecuador alone with a little girl, like Elisabeth Elliot after Jim had died, I wanted to know where she found her strength to go on.

The answer came in the part where Elisabeth continued teaching her Quichua pupils in Shandia the day after the spearing, not knowing whether Jim still lived. A Bible verse she had learnt came into her mind and Elisabeth clung to the words of Isaiah 43:2, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you."

Easter 1965, because she was rh negative, Charlotte Swanson came up to Quito for the birth of her fifth child. She invited me and Gisella to tea in the house where she was staying at HCJB. Exhausted, homesick and in physical pain, I arrived feeling very miserable. Charlotte read me Isaiah 54:11-13 [King James' version], "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children."

"This means," said Charlotte, "that if you give to God the rough stones of your sins and sorrows, He will turn them into jewels... foundations of help for others."

"God, is this true?" I prayed inwardly - perhaps for the first time.

Into the room walked Dale Hendrickson, her host. Not having heard our conversation, he said, "Would you like to see my collection of semi-precious stones? I've just brought some back from Brazil." On to the table, Dale poured an instant visual aid of the words Charlotte had just read. The stones glowed as though reflecting a hidden fire. Dale held up one that looked like a piece of agate - a window of agate. "This," he said, "is a piece of fossilised wood from Tewaeno in Waorani land cut with a jewel saw."

June 24, 1965, I went for an eye test, hoping new glasses would relieve the constant pain in my head. Waiting my turn in a garden of scarlet canna lilies, I opened at random my Gospel of John - unread for years. "T have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." [John 16:33 NIV.]

Suddenly I saw that my search was not for religion - a miserable set of rules impossible to keep - but for a Person alive now, not against but *for* me!

"It's your spine. Go to Dr Weaver!" said a quiet voice inside me as I walked out of the opticians clutching my prescription. Dr. Weaver was normally to be found at the hospital in Shell Mera, often working a 20-hour day, But just now he was in Quito for a few days. He was such a gifted osteopath that people even came from the USA to the jungle for his treatments.

June 25, 1965, I sat in the waiting room till Dr Weaver was free. Surprised by an unannounced English patient, he asked for my background and I told him of my 14 foot fall from a tree as a teenager and two spells in a body cast. Dr Weaver then amazed me by praying before he started to examine me.

"You still have five vertebrae out of place and a slightly twisted pelvis," said Dr Weaver. "I will straighten them now but you will soon have worse pain because your muscles are used to the wrong position. Can you come to Shell Mera hospital for two weeks' treatment?"

Dr Weaver's treatment left me blissfully pain free for half an hour. Then red hot needles seemed to pierce my back and head. "You need daily treatment for two weeks. Can you come down to the hospital in Shell Mera?" he asked. "Can you find someone to care for your daughter?" I thought so and agreed to go on the Tuesday flight, leaving Gisella in Quito. Later, American Embassy friends kindly offered to look after her.

The next day, after buying my ticket, I called in to see Esther Reimer.

"Catherine Peeke and Rachel Saint who live with the Waorani are in Quito," said Esther. Again, something fired within me. I *had* to speak to them.

Esther phoned Catherine and handed me the receiver. I have no idea what I said but it resulted in an invitation to lunch at the Wycliffe Group House in La Carolina. Sitting between Catherine and Rachel, opposite director's wife Helen Johnson, I began to ask questions waiting within me since I had first heard the Palm Beach story aboard the 'Queen of the Sea'.

Another invitation resulted. "When you come out of hospital in Shell Mera," said Helen warmly, "you are welcome to recuperate for two weeks at our Linguistic Center in Limoncocha." I accepted gratefully. Then as Catherine saw me to the gate, we talked of translation and writing.

June 28, 1965, Colleen and Cecil Davis - on their way home to the USA for leave - again invited us to tea at Marj's house. Early that afternoon, I lay on my bed sobbing with exhaustion, homesickness for my family and intense pain. Suddenly I remembered Elisabeth Elliot in "Through Gates of Slendour" clinging to the words of Isaiah 43:2. Ireached for my Bible which I had begun to read again. Opening at random, I read Psalm 126, stopping at verse five: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy."

The Presence whom I had felt in the MAF home at Shell Mera surrounded me. "It is He who is speaking these words to me!" I thought. They became so beautiful I could not stop reading them and arrived at Marj's house, clutching my Bible with one hand and Gisella with the other. I felt great joy at seeing Colleen and Cecil again but God seemed cruel taking them away just as I was returning to Shell.

"How are you?" asked Cecil. Out poured my woes.

"Good!" he said.

"How unkind!" I thought.

"All you can do now is trust the Lord and He will not fail you!" said Cecil. My comeuppance, but it would be a while yet before I learned the truth of his words.

As we walked out of the HCJB compound, someone stopped us, asked kindly who we were and prayed for my treatment in Shell right there on the pathway.

Before I left for Shell Mera, Esther Reimer gave me a book with a Bible verse and comment for each day of the year. The words in Amy Carmichael's "Edges of His Ways" seemed alive.

At the end of June 1965, I arrived at the Epp Memorial Hospital in Shell Mera where Dr Weaver manipulated my spine daily. He was pleased with my progress but gave a fearful prognosis, "You won't be fit enough to work again for a whole year." Daunting words. I wanted to stay in Ecuador but, as I read the Bible and "Edges of His Ways", I began to understand that God could guide me through these words. I felt He was telling me to return to England. My letter to Dad asking, "May I come home?" crossed with his saying, "Come home!"

Meanwhile, I was still a patient in the hospital which Nate Saint had built, where I watched MAF pilots Cecil Davis and Dave Osterhus fly emergency medical cases in daily from distant jungle villages. A Shuar warrior arrived, clutching his blowgun, then a young Shuar man from Yaapi who had slashed his wrist mowing with a machete. Dr Weaver operated on a Quichua Indian who had fallen off a raft in the rapids and torn himself on the rocks. Raquela, a Quichua mother whom I had met six months before when we stayed in Puyupungu with Mary Skinner, came after her baby died.

Raquela shared my little room. Mary, who always cheered me up, came to pray with us both. I didn't realise it then, but all around me were praying that I would give my past sins to Jesus and receive Him as my Saviour.

Mid July, Gisella was due to fly down from Quito on the TAO DC-3. "She's only two," I thought. "Who will take care of her on that bumpy ride rising over 14,000 foot mountains, between giant volcanos, then dipping down through the Banyos Pass to the edge of the Amazon Rain Forest?"

Jesus saw our need. Dr Weaver's wife was unexpectely on that flight. She held Gisella all the way. I had longed to see my daughter again but it was a strange reunion. I had left her with American Embassy friends in Quito for only two weeks. When I had last seen her, she was speaking mostly Spanish with some British words. Now she arrived speaking broad Texan!

That afternoon, Gisella and I swung together in a Waorani hammock at the Wycliffe hangar in Shell Mera, while waiting for JAARS pilot Roy Gleason to fly us into Limoncocha. But first Roy needed to make emergency medical flights to the Waorani. While waiting, I picked up a "Translation" magazine and read an article by Rachel Saint about the Waorani.

Again I wondered, "How could the Waorani have stopped their revenge killing? How could Marj, Elisabeth and the other widows forgive them?" I could not understand the dramatic change in the Waorani's lives but I felt inexplicably drawn to them and to their translators as though by a magnet. Remembering Dayuma's Gospel stories which I had read in Marj's house, I thought, "These words have stopped the Waorani killing, can they not take away my bitterness and hurt too? How I longed to share in that translation work but I did not yet know the Author of its message of life and love.

At 25, I had fulfilled all my career ambitions but each time I had reached a goal, I felt more empty, still seeking something to fill the void in my heart. That afternoon, in the JAARS hangar at Shell Mera, I was feeling that I was teetering on the brink of hell.

Late afternoon, Roy Gleason returned from the Waorani and we took off in the Helio Courier. Soaring over the vast green carpet of trees I thought, "This jungle stretches 2000 miles across Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. How terrible to be lost in it!

Suddenly, a storm engulfed us. Clouds shrouded the giant trees below. Rain sluiced off the Helio's windshield. The Helio bucked in the rough air while Gisella squirmed on my lap. Our earphones crackled with static but I could still hear Dr Weaver's gentle voice in Shell giving medical instructions over our two-way radio to nurse Lois Pederson in Limoncocha.

We emerged from the storm dangerously near nightfall. Below us a green ribbon unzipped a tiny opening in the matted trees - our landing strip by the "Lemonlake". I was dreading our arrival in Limoncocha. "What shall we do among these missionaries?" I wondered. "Will they try to convert me? How will I answer them if they do? Where are we going to sleep in this jungle?"

As the Helio touched down on the grass airstrip, everyone from the Centre gathered at that little wooden hangar. Ladies hugged us. Men greeted us warmly. Then as Mary Sargent led us down a grass road to the Don Johnson Cabin, a huge setting sun tinged the lake with fiery gold. An orchestra serenaded us: warbling oropendola birds, cicadas, crickets, frogs. . .

Then, as only it can in the tropics, night fell as though a black velvet cloak had been thrown over the shoulder of the world. A full moon transformed the lake into a silver mirror, silhouetted lemon trees and chonta palms and made diamonds of raindrops on the thick grass. A trumpeter bird honked from somewhere in the night around an beautiful open grassy area as we walked across it from our guest cabin for supper at Mary's thatched house on stilts.

How false had been my fears! During our days at the Lemonlake we received such love and acceptance from linguists and pilots alike. They calmed my spirits outwardly but inwardly I was still in turmoil and seeking answers to so many questions. Each morning, I read the Daily Bible verse on a calendar Mary Skinner had given to me, and those and the readings in "Edges of His Ways" spoke to my heart. One evening, I joined in a Bible study on 2 Peter Chapter One at Don and Helen Johnson's house by the lake. I felt quite comfortable until Carolyn Orr, translator for the Quichuas, spoke on a verse from the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our shortcomings, as we also have forgiven those who have failed in their duty towards us." Matthew 6:12 [Weymouth]. I had not forgiven my husband for leaving me without food and money just after Gisella was born. How could God forgive me?

The next day, still utterly perplexed about the Waorani's ability to forgive their enemies and start a new life of peace, I sought out Catherine Peeke and poured out all my pent-up questions. Catherine listened, then played tapes of Wao language and songs. My longing to meet the Waorani grew unbearable and erupted in a silent shout to God, "Why did You bring me to Ecuador only to send me back home? I want to be involved in this work that changes hearts."

I did not expect an answer but the same quiet voice I had heard telling me to go to Dr Weaver spoke again, "I brought you here once under such difficult circumstances. Don't you believe I can do it again?"

Even though I still did not know the Lord Jesus, from that moment I believed He would bring me back to Ecuador to share in the Bible Translation work.

After ten days, the pain in my spine suddenly returned and we flew back to Shell Mera. As much as my back hurt the pain in my heart was worse as I left those missionaries who had shown Gisella and me such love: children for Gisella to play with, a Catherine Marshall book that made me even thirstier to know Jesus, delicious meals and listening ears!

Dave Osterhus met us when he went to collect the mail bag at Shell airstrip and drove us to the hospital where I registered. "Hilda Schmidt of the Gospel Missionary Union across the road has invited you to stay with them. You can eat your meals in the hospital kitchen," said the receptionist.

Gisella and I were eating rice, meat, bananas and salad at a little wooden table when the kitchen door opened. In walked JAARS pilot George Fletcher, Dayuma's son Sam and a short man with gnarled features and stretched dangling earlobes that in earlier years had housed two inch diameter balsa wood plugs. His wide feet with splayed toes padded across the wooden floor to sit down at our table...across from me. Gikita! I recognised him from photos in Elisabeth Elliot's book "The Savage my Kinsman". I couldn't believe it. This former Wao warrior, now a Christian, was sitting opposite me. Through Sam who spoke English, Spanish and his own language Wao, I greeted this man who had been a killer, who had led the Palm Beach spearing raid against Nate, Jim, Ed, Roger and Pete.

Now bitten by a deadly fer-de-lance snake, Gikita had refused an injection but allowed the pilot to fly him to hospital for treatment. He recovered. I'll always believe Jesus brought him to Shell Mera especially for me. At our third meal together, I looked into Gikita's eyes expecting fear, hatred, remorse. . . They glowed with the same peace as Marj Saint's.

"I can't understand..." I thought, looking intently at Gikita. "You killed Marj's husband and she's forgiven you. She even takes Steve, Kathy and Phil for visits with your people. I came 8000 miles to start a new life but I'm still the same miserable person on the inside. You lived like a savage but now you are a person - a cleansed man from the inside outwards. How did it happen? I'm tired of this bitterness. I want to forgive my husband as Marj has forgiven you."

That week, the Gospel Missionary Union were holding a girls' camp called "Amigas de Jesus" 'Friends of Jesus'. Hilda invited me to attend the films, gospel puppet shows and also to help in the food preparation. There were plenty of children for Gisella to play with. One of the hospital nurses took part of her holiday to help in the camp. I couldn't understand such dedication but I listened, watched and read the Bible in my room. Its words came more and more to life, speaking to my heart as though the Author understood my every thought.

One morning, I walked down to MAF alone. As I left, Hilda warned me, "Watch out for coral snakes. You have only half an hour to live if one of those bites you!"

Terrified I thought, "Whatever could I do to make myself acceptable to God in half an hour?"

As I returned to the Epp Memorial Hospital, I heard the Ecuadorian chaplain preaching in Spanish on Luke 6:46,"Why call me "Master, Master," and yet not do what I tell you?" and Matthew 7:23, "Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you; begone from me, you doers of wickedness.'" [Weymouth translation.] That intensified my terror. I had none of the calm assurance of eternal life shown by the five men before they had flown to Palm Beach.

July 30, 1965, I sat on Hilda Schmidt's verandah, waiting for our lift to the airport and my plane back to Quito, when Mardelle Brown drove out of the Bible School taking a truck full of girls to the river to swim - all singing Nate Saint's favourite Ecuadorian hymn, "La Sangre Preciosa Sangre del Unigenito Hijo de Dios" about the blood of the Lord Jesus, God's only Son. As our DC-3 soared over the silver rapids of the Pastaza River, climbed past the crystal crown of Mount Antisana and landed in Quito, at 9,300 feet under the green shoulders of Mount Pichincha, Nate's favourite hymn kept on ringing in my heart.

That night, I could not sleep. I had problems I couldn't solve. We had to leave our rented house in just one week, by August 7th, but there were no seats available on flights to Miami for two whole months. I had saved a third of our fare home, my father had sent me a third but I still lacked one third: then 5,000 sucres in Ecuadorian money.

Next morning, July 31, 1965, descending the Avenida La Gasca in a bus, I watched great purple cloud shadows steal across green-gold slopes of the jagged eastern Andes. "Those mountains form a barrier between Quito and Shell Mera," I thought. "What barrier is it that looms between me and the missionaries whom I have grown to love?"

At the Christian and Missionary Alliance office where Esther had offered to receive my mail, she greeted me holding out a letter, "This came for you from Cecil and Colleen in Florida." Through tears, I read Cecil's words about Jesus Christ dying for *my* sins 2000 years ago. I seemed to see Him on the cross beside Esther's grey filing cabinet, looking at me with great love.

"Esther, Cecil's right," I said. "I *am* sorry for my sins. I *do* believe. What do I do, get baptised?"

"All you have to do at the moment is believe," said Esther. "Jesus has already done everything for you on the cross."

Full of joy, Esther hugged me then said, "We'd better pray about that airticket you need." Sitting in an office praying for an airticket was new to me but that is just what we did. "Now," said Esther, "call the airline. If there is a cancellation on the 7th August take it and book right through to England, even though you don't yet have all the money. God will provide."

I phoned. There was a cancellation for August 7th! I booked right through: turbo prop from Quito to Miami, Greyhound Bus up the east coast of the USA and jet from New York to London. Now all I lacked was money! [4,990 sucres came two days later through a sale of things I no longer needed - even though buyers beat me down to a tenth of the marked price - then $50 the day after. At the airport, missionary friends gave me cards containing loving messages, Bible verses and dollar gifts. God *did* provide!]

From Esther's I took a bus to HCJB. I *had* to tell Marj Saint I had become a Christian. Marj danced for joy. I had never realised how lost I had been until I saw her joy that I was saved.

The following is a detailed account written by Judy Maxwell. In this document she tells finer points about her new life in Christ, where He took her, what she did, and how the "Palm Beach" event became a key thread in the weaving of her life.

Our Saviour Lutheran: JUDY, YOUR LIFE WAS TURNED AROUND AS A RESULT OF MEETING GIKITA. WHAT HAPPENED AFTER YOU LEFT ECUADOR?

JUDY: In August 1965, Gisella and I returned to England via the USA. In Florida I had a wonderful reunion with Colleen and Cecil Davis and we all rejoiced that I had received Christ as my Saviour. Later, in New Jersey, I had lunch with Gwen and Dr. Tidmarsh [who had been at Oglan with Mintaka, Maengamo and Elisabeth Elliot]. His prayer for me about my future missionary service touched me deeply.

When we arrived in England, Mother and Dad received us with open arms. With my grandfather we were four generations packed into a small house. I spent nearly a year recovering my health and then, in answer to prayer, I was offered a job teaching French, German and Spanish at a girls' private school nearby. That November, Rachel Saint came through London with Kimo, one of the "Palm Beach" killers [now a church leader] and Komi, Dayuma's husband. I had breakfast with them at Mr. and Mrs. Cambell Reid's house. Kimo's smile nearly split his face when Rachel told him I had come to know the Lord Jesus as my Saviour because of the Waorani believers' changed lives. The following year, when Gisella needed to start school within the city boundary, we moved into the boarding house of the school where I taught and then, I also worked as assistant matron. The Eagles family, dear, faithful friends in our church, opened their home to us every Wednesday afternoon and Sunday.

In 1968-70, they cared for Gisella in term time with their own five children while I trained for junior teaching. I did an intensive course, commuting weekly on three buses each way. School holidays we spent at my parents' home. During my teaching practice, Dayuma's son Sam Padilla sent me a cassette of Waorani singing their songs [some old songs by the Downriver group and some new hymns by the believers], with slides from Catherine Peeke showing the Baiwa group's arrival in Tewaeno. These brought me great joy and provided material for school projects about real people.

Staying with the Eagles family was a good experience for Gisella. They loved her and disciplined her as they did their own children. Their day started with family prayers and Bible reading, and on Friday evenings, they had fun times together too. Both teachers, they encouraged me in my teaching as well as my Christian life. Their home was open to missionaries and many young people. We called it an "evangelastic" house because their hearts and home constantly expanded!

Father God gave me a job in a different junior school from Gisella's and provided a little house near the Eagles' home. Gisella and I loved living in our own home, but one day with tears she said, "It's not complete without a Daddy." A quick prayer and God put the words in my mouth, "Jesus is your Father and my Husband." To affirm it I had a text lettered: Psalm 68:5, "A Father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation." This became our family motto.

Teaching a class of 38, marking piles of lesson books in the evening, caring for Gisella, running a home and trying to fulfil the duties of both parents, left me feeling almost overwhelmed at times. But it was God's Word that gave me strength to continue. My day always began at 6.30am with Bible reading and prayer, then a time reading Scripture with Gisella before we left for our schools. When I began to learn that the Lord Jesus was still with me in the classroom, at the kitchen sink and when digging the garden, I silently called His name in the pressures of my day and knew His presence.

I held a lunchtime Bible class for any children who wanted to learn about Jesus. Several came from broken homes. One day, the Lord Jesus told me to share with them the message of the "Windows of Agates" [from Isaiah 54] that Charlotte Swanson had given me in Quito seven years before: "If we give to Jesus the rough stones of our sins and our sorrows, He is able to turn them into precious stones. Sometimes Jesus changes painful situations. Sometimes He does not. But, if we trust Him, He changes our hearts to bear them."

It was shortly after that, I bought two semi-circular slices of agate and put them on either side of our clock in the front room. "These are our 'Windows of Agates'," I told Gisella. "Let's trust Jesus in our times of pressure and He will make those times as beautiful as these agates."

Soon after that, Gisella gave me a hug and said, "I'd rather have a Mummy who loves and cares for me than two parents who have no time to spend with me." Those words still shine like precious stones to me.

Our Saviour Lutheran: DID YOU STAY IN TOUCH WITH ANY OF YOUR FRIENDS IN ECUADOR?

JUDY: Rachel Saint, Catherine Peeke and Helen Johnson filled me in regularly from Ecuador with news of the Waorani for whom I prayed by name. Just after returning to England, I was reading through Genesis, when the Lord Jesus gave me a promise me in Chapter 28:15: "I am with you and ... will bring you back to this land." At every crossroads in my life, that promise and other Bible verses I associated with Ecuador spoke personally to me. I felt certain the Lord was telling me he would take us back.

Nine years after we had returned to England, Christ told me in a dream, "It is time to go back to Ecuador", then confirmed it through Bible verses in my daily readings and at church. That summer, we visited Colleen and Cecil Davis at MAF in Fullerton, California. They *did* believe Christ had called us to Ecuador. Cecil, with great wisdom admonished me, "Don't accept any assignment that separates you from Gisella. Make a home for her in Quito the same as you have in England."

The next day, we saw some agate paperweights and I remembered our Father God's promise, "I will make thy windows of agates ... and all thy children shall be taught of Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children." [Isaiah 54:12-13 KJV.]

Our Saviour Lutheran: HOW LONG WAS IT BEFORE YOU WENT BACK TO ECUADOR?

JUDY: Exactly ten years after I had given my sins to the Lord Jesus and received Him as my Saviour, Gisella and I boarded the SS Donizetti in Genoa, Italy. Nearly a month later, we flew into Quito after landing in Guayaquil. Many Wycliffe members who had prayed for our salvation ten years before greeted us at Quito airport. At first we stayed at the Wycliffe Group House. One day, Don and Helen Johnson met us with a loving, gracious offer of hospitality saying, "You may phone us or come to us at any time of day or night." Gisella plunged into the American school system in eighth grade at the Alliance Academy and I served in technical support work in the Wycliffe/SIL office.

At Christmas 1975, Catherine Peeke invited us to spend two weeks with her in Tewaeno. While I typed, Gisella sewed with Waorani girls. We listened with rapt attention as ten-year-old Encaedi, who was a fluent reader, came daily to read in his language. [Encaedi was the son of Minkaye, one of the Palm Beach killers.] We swam, Gisella and I, with the Waorani girls in the river while sun glinted on feathery chonta palms and miniature rapids. My heart overflowed with joy at being among the Waorani who now had a fresh start in Jesus because the five men had died. On our second Sunday there, the 20th anniversary of the Palm Beach spearing, Dayuma invited me to give my testimony in "God's speaking house," as they call their church building. She translated it from Spanish into Wao: "When I met Gikita, my heart was still black with sin," I said. All the believers sucked in their breath with surprise. I longed to see Gikita, but that was not to be, not now. He lived in a distant community then.

On our way back to Quito, Gisella and I stayed at the large MAF house which Nate Saint had built in Shell Mera and breakfasted in the kitchen where the five wives had heard they were now widows. That sad memory turned to joy as I remembered my entrance into the kingdom of God through reading the books associated with Palm Beach and meeting both Marj Saint and Gikita. How many others have believed in the Lord Jesus because Nate, Ed, Roger, Jim and Pete died trusting Him!

Around Easter 1976, I found myself on our JAARS flight to Limoncocha sitting next to Sam Saint, Nate's elder brother. Sam had come down to Ecuador to visit his sister Rachel and the Waorani. At a supper the evening before, Marj had asked me to tell Sam how I had come to know the Lord through his brother's death and the changed life of his killer. As the DC-3 soared over the 14,000 foot continental divide, we sucked oxygen from tubes stuck up our noses instead of clutching them between our teeth which is normal. We didn't want to impede our non stop talking! Later Sam and Jeanne Saint became faithful friends and supporters to me and Gisella. They invited us to their New England home four times and introduced us to their church.

At the end of our first school year in Ecuador, during Gisella's long summer break, we lived in Gleasons' house in Limoncocha where I catalogued the Linguistic Library. Gisella helped in the school library, read and practised her violin. Every afternoon the strains of Vivaldi's lovely violin concerto in A floated out through the jungle. In July, we spent nine wonderful days in Tewaeno alone in Catherine's house. On the flight back to Limoncocha, we overflew Palm Beach - a deeply moving experience for me.

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth ... no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mother, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." [Mark 10:29-30 New International Version]. That promise was fulfilled for us, pressed down and flowing over. The Ecuador Branch of the Wycliffe Bible Translators were a close-knit supportive group and became our extended family, providing us with many loving sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles. This was especially good for Gisella who had attended an all girls high school and lived with only a mother for the five years before we returned to Ecuador.

We also had friends in other missions. One, Barbara Youderian, whose husband Roger had died on Palm Beach, took Gisella under her wing to encourage her because she was growing up without a father. One time when Barbara came to lunch, she told me about her visit to Tewaeno soon after Rachel, Elisabeth and Valerie had gone to live there. Gikita had come to see Barbara, pouring out a confession in his nasal language which Elisabeth translated: "He's saying he's sorry he killed your husband!"

In Ecuador, we never lacked homes either. On first arriving in Quito, we had rented a room at the Wycliffe Group House. Then HCJB missionary radio station allowed me to rent Betty Harkins' beautifully equipped apartment while she was on leave. A year later, Marj Saint arranged to meet me one lunch time and gently told me that HCJB needed that apartment. Ever practical and caring, Marj drove me north of Quito to see an apartment under Dr Wally and Charlotte Swanson's house next door to her and Dr Abe's home which overlooked snowcapped Mount Cayambe.

Late November 1976, Gisella and I moved into our new home in a fir and eucalyptus wood, where we would live for four years. Nate and Marj's eldest son Steve had built it and Marj lent us much of his and Ginny's furniture. Here we were, living in the house of Charlotte Swanson who had first given me the message of the "Windows of Agates" in Quito eleven years before. As I unpacked our own two slices of agate bought in England - our family "Windows of Agates" - then held them up, I saw that they were the same shape as the five arc-shaped windows in our new white-washed circular home. Father's promise rang joyously in my heart: "I will make thy windows of agates . . . All thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children." [Isaiah 54:12-13 KJV.]

Evenings, when we returned from school and the Wycliffe office, I lit a eucalyptus log fire in the central stone chimney from which eucalyptus beams radiated across the wooden ceiling like spokes of a wheel. Flames leapt in the fireplace devouring pungent wood and three of the five "windows of agates" reflected the flame-dance on the fir trees outside. Yet, like the burning bush in which Almighty God appeared as fire to Moses, the trees were not consumed. Often I felt unworthy to be a servant of God in Ecuador. Then, as I watched the reflections of flames from our hearth leap in the fir trees outside, my Father God said to me, "You are only a bush but I live within you. The work and the glory...and the fire...are Mine."

Though I met many Waorani believers during my five years' service in Ecuador, my longing to meet Gikita again was not fulfilled at that time.

Our Saviour Lutheran: HOW ABOUT YOUR DAUGHTER, DID SHE CARRY ANY HOPES THROUGH THESE YEARS?

JUDY: Yes, Gisella also had a different sort of burning desire - to find her father. In His wisdom, her heavenly Father delayed that meeting until He had given her a loving husband, a home and until the first of her three children was one year old.

On the day when Gisella first met her father after 27 years, Marj Saint Van der Puy and Dr Abe came to my mother's home for a brief visit. As my Quito neighbours walked through Mother's door, it was as though we had never been apart those ten years. Marj showed us photos of their last visit to the Waorani. Gikita featured in most. I still longed to tell him how he had impacted my life but it seemed impossible for me ever to return to Ecuador, although I believed God had promised I would.

When I realised that Gisella had met her father on the other side of the country on the very day my Father God had sent Marj Saint to me, my heart leapt with joy. I remembered meeting with Gikita in the hospital kitchen at Shell Mera. Though I did not know the Lord Jesus then, I had prayed that He would enable me to forgive my ex-husband as Marj had forgiven Gikita. How beautifully my loving Father had answered, taking all my bitterness away.

Our Saviour Lutheran: DID YOU EVER GET TO REALLY THANK GIKITA?

JUDY: Just as the Lord Jesus had answered Gisella's prayer to find her father, He fulfilled my desire to see and communicate with Gikita. The following year, a miraculous gift provided for me to return to Ecuador for three months where I helped former colleagues in two projects at the completion of the Wycliffe work there. I also met again many Ecuadorian friends and saw with joy how they had gone on trusting and serving Christ. Several times, I was invited back to the Ladies' prison where I had taught a weekly music class 1979-80. About 30 ladies listened to my story in Spanish and when I reached the part about Gikita they hung on every word. He had killed at least a dozen men before yielding to Christ, yet I had come to Jesus Christ through seeing the change in Gikita's life.

The highlight of my third time in Ecuador was the Waorani New Testament Dedication in Shell Mera. That morning, as the 30 Waorani guests arrived by MAF planes, I searched for Gikita among the excited guests in the MAF hangar. He emerged slightly bewildered, but smiling, from the last of five Cessnas that had brought in the Waorani believers from their jungle villages.

As though drawn by a magnet, I followed the Waorani to their accommodation with Steve and Phil Saint. My camera was snapping as I took many photos of Gikita, including one of him and Kimo laughing with Phil Saint, whose father they had killed on Palm Beach. I saw the affectionate bond that exists between Nate's children and his Christ-forgiven killers.

During the service, I found a seat next to Dayuma and right behind Gikita. Clutching a letter I had written containing all that I had longed to tell Gikita for 27 years, I kept my eye on him often. At the end of the service, with pounding heart, I moved forward to buy Gikita a copy of "God's Carving" in his mother tongue. One of its translators, Catherine Peeke explained my letter to him which she had translated into Wao. Clutching his New Testament Gikita listened intently. Suddenly, a sunrise smile broke over his gnarled features. Gikita understood.

And I'm forever blessed!

Still in the womb when your father was speared,
you grew to boyhood thirsting for vengeance
amid constant talk of spearings and revenge.
Then, while burying your snake-bitten brother Cowae,
your mother Tyaemae almost killed you in her grief.

Later, thirst-rasped, hunger-gnawed, mosquito-bitten,
you escaped with your mother into the dense jungle,
leaving the vulture-picked bones of your whole group
slain in surprise attack by enemies from your own people -
like hunters killing a family of toucan birds in a nest.

Fleeing and hiding, fleeing and hiding, you lived for two years -
no companions, no hammock to swing in at night,
no star-shaped log fire underneath to warm your feet,
no palm-thatched roof to protect you from rain
and no manioc garden to harvest or plant.

At six, you started drinking chewed fermented manioc,
dancing all night at parties, practising spearing on tree-trunks,
blasting out your bitterness, venting a crescendo of boiling rage
which, in your manhood, erupted into a trail of violence.
You speared whole families, Gikita, burning their houses, until

"Woo woo", the foreigner's "wood-beetle" hovered overhead,
dropping friendship gifts. Then it landed on a sandbar by your
River Curaray. Outsiders - as many as the fingers of one hand -
dared to approach your wild people. They offered words of love,
strange, without context in your violent fear-ridden world.

"Aucas", `savages' neighbouring Quichuas called your people.
Gikita, true to that name, you blared commands to young bloods:
"If we die, we die, but let's spear them once and for all!
If you do well on this raid," you yelled, "we'll go downriver
and spear all our enemies there!" They did well

And five men, hearts full of love for your wild people, fell,
bored through with nine-foot chonta-wood lances,
bodies and Piper plane brutally battered and discarded,
but spirits entering glory through "Gates of Splendour",
face to face with Jesus Christ who gave His life for them.

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep
to gain what he cannot lose," wrote Jim Elliot.
"Maempo!" `Father!' cried Nate Saint, with forgiving look,
as you thrust him through with your spear, Gikita.
His words of loving friendship haunted you.

Then your niece Dayuma returned to your village after years
of exile among the "cowode", the dreaded outsiders.
Dayuma brought the widow, daughter and sister of two men
you had killed. You suspected revenge but they came in peace -
demonstrating Father God's forgiving love before your people.

After dark, swinging in your hammock by a star-shaped log fire,
you listened with the Waorani to Dayuma's stories of "Itota",
Jesus the sinless Son of God who gave His life that Father God
may forgive your sins. You cried: "My heart was black with sin!
but Jesus' blood dripped and dripped and washed my heart clean.

"When we speared those five men, we did not do well," you said,
"but dying we shall see them again and seeing them
we shall be happy." Glorious words! for Nate had longed,
and died that you might know God as "Maempo" your 'Father'.
His last word lodged in your murder-weary heart and bore fruit.

God forgave your sins, Gikita, because Christ died for you.
He "carved" His words on your heart and absorbed your anger.
Yes! Jesus transformed you from killer to carer, as you led
your people - now no longer "Aucas" `savages' - but truly
"Waorani" 'The People' into new pathways of peace and love.

Today, I heard you have died, Gikita, - at eighty.
Had Dayuma not come with the Gospel of love, an avenger's spear
would have transfixed your chest before you reached forty.
Surely the five men slain on Palm Beach welcomed you to heaven!
Gikita, now you are in "Maempo" Father God's arms - at last.

Judy Maxwell, February 1997

With grateful acknowledgement to Jim Yost for recording and translating Gikita's early life story and to Rachel Saint for her words spoken after she had repented and put his trust in Christ.