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EP259: Father Receives Daughter's Text during Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre, My Grandpa the Storyteller and

Our American Stories / Lee Habeeb
The Truth Network Radio
April 12, 2022 3:05 am

EP259: Father Receives Daughter's Text during Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre, My Grandpa the Storyteller and

Our American Stories / Lee Habeeb

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April 12, 2022 3:05 am

On this episode of Our American Stories, Paul Kengor's daughters were across the street while a tragedy unfolded at the Tree of Life Synagogue on October 27, 2018. Dennis Peterson shares memories of his Appalachian storytelling grandfather, Paw Summers. Elisabeth Elliot, author of Through Gates of Splendor tells us the story of Operation Auca, an attempt by five American missionaries to reach the Auca tribe (considered the most dangerous in the world) of eastern Ecuador.

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Time Codes:

00:00 -  Father Receives Daughter's Text during Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre

10:00 - My Grandpa the Storyteller

23:00 - Through the Gates of Splendor

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Send them to ouramericanstories.com. There's some of our favorites. In October of 2018, a tragedy struck a synagogue in Squirrel Hill, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Paul Kengor's daughters were nearly in the line of fire. Here he is to recount that story.

Pray for us. I will call you later. That was the text message that we received from our 16-year-old daughter at 10.16 a.m. on Saturday morning, October 27, 2018, as my wife and I drove toward Pittsburgh Strip District in downtown Pittsburgh. My wife called my daughter immediately. Are you okay?

Were you in an accident? In a hushed voice, my daughter explained that she, our second daughter and three friends, along with an adult friend of ours named Susie, were hiding in their van across the street from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill section. They were there for a Saturday morning retreat at a house across the street. They had arrived at 9.55 a.m. They had initially stopped the van directly across from the synagogue on Shady Avenue, which would have been straight in the line of fire between the police and the shooter. It's going to be a 5898 Wilkins Avenue Tree of Life Synagogue, 3480.

Do you copy? They were planning to hop out and walk to the house. Mercifully, the driver, Susie, decided almost on a whim, a gut feel, she later conceded, to find a parking spot so she could walk the girls inside. Just as she moved to a spot a little further away, police cars began flying in.

Okay, initial reports of an active shooter, down in the Tree of Life Synagogue. As a girl struggled to assess the chaos, the police parked sideways in order to use their vehicles as shields for the shootout. The street was instantly closed off. Susie told the girls not to get out. They all sat on the floor of the van, ducked and listened and prayed and worried.

We received that text message about 20 minutes later. Shortly after we talked to her daughter, Susie and the girls made a careful decision to drive a little further away. Susie did a U-turn and went down the street just enough to pull into a driveway that allowed them to put a few houses and buildings of separation between them, the synagogue and the gunfire. After nearly an hour of chaos and confusion, the girls decided to abandon the van and make a run for it. They dashed across backyards and over fences to meet a relative of Susie who lived down the street. They could hear gunfire in the background. They met Susie's relative in his getaway car. They escaped.

They got free. It was a scary day. It was also evil, an act of evil against our beloved Jewish brothers and sisters at a peaceful Saturday worship service.

And while my loved ones were okay, the same cannot be said of everyone in that synagogue, 11 of which were murdered. I've since returned to that spot about a half a dozen times since last October 27th. In fact, I'll be there again this Saturday with the girls.

It's never the same. Each time I go, I pause the look of the synagogue and say a prayer. I've since talked to other parents who had dropped off their girls at the retreat center that Saturday morning. One of them, a dad, marvels at the conversation that he and his wife had had that fateful morning. His wife typically dropped off his daughter and then sat in the car in the drop-off lane at the Tree of Life synagogue, where she waited and worked on her laptop for a couple of hours. On this morning, though, the dad, again, another strange gut feel. Ollie decided that he wanted to drive his daughter to the retreat center. He wasn't sure why, but he just tried to convince his wife to stay at home. He prevailed and talked her into it.

She stayed at home. For some strange reason, they made that decision. Had they not, his wife might have been one of the first ones shot that morning. The suspect in the shooting is in custody. We have multiple casualties inside the synagogue. We have three officers who have been shot. And at this time, we have no more information because we are still clearing the building and trying to figure out if the situation is safe, if there are any more threats inside the building.

So that's all we have at this point. They were very lucky. So were we. My wife and I, of course, are so grateful that our loved ones didn't get caught in the crossfire.

My kids had only one scrape, one of the girls from hopping over a fence. And yet I imagine that many of the families of the 11 dead asked why God hadn't spared their loved ones. I agree. That's one of those timeless questions that we all ask. It's a question that believers of all stripes and the Jewish people in particular have asked since literally the time of Job. It's a mystery why some leave this world in a violent way, seemingly prematurely, while others seem to stay longer in this valley of tears and if and when certain people are protected and others are or aren't. I have no answer there, though I know that God is the author of life and God wasn't the one pulling the trigger in that synagogue. The evil that transpired there was not an act of benevolence by a loving God.

I also feel confident in saying this. The true tree of life is not an earthly one, but an eternal one. This world, unlike the heavenly paradise we seek, is full of sin and rot. The trees in this world, they decay and they die.

Eternal life and perfect bliss are not reachable in this world. They come in the next. Now that might be small consolation, I understand, to the grieving and hurting loved ones of the Tree of Life Synagogue, but honestly, I think it's truly the best that we can say. And we've been listening to Paul Kangor, who teaches at nearby Grove City College.

And by the way, that's where our own Robbie Davis went to college. And what a story he told indeed. Why do some leave this world prematurely at the hands of a madman in a mass murder like this while others don't? And I don't think Paul could have put it better, and I don't think there's a better way to put it. It's a mystery.

And in the end, well, we can't put ourselves in God's mind. And it's a mystery. Paul Kangor's story, his family's story, of a tragedy in Pennsylvania that still lives with him today and will live on with him forever. This is Our American Stories. Here at Our American Stories, we bring you inspiring stories of history, sports, business, faith, and love. Stories from a great and beautiful country that need to be told.

But we can't do it without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love our stories and America like we do, please go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little.

Give a lot. Help us keep the great American stories coming. That's OurAmericanStories.com. And we return to Our American Stories. Up next, a story from our regular contributor, Dennis Peterson. Dennis is an author and historian who specializes in Southern history. Today Dennis shares with us a story about his grandfather entitled, Paw Summers Storyteller.

Take it away, Dennis. Part of the Southern Appalachian heritage is the skill of storytelling. And whenever that topic arises in a conversation, my mind automatically returns to memories of Frederick Newman Summers, or Paw, as we grandchildren called him. To me, he was the quintessential storyteller, a natural who probably never realized his own skill. During all of my lifetime and until his death in December 1972, Paw lived in the rocky hill country of the rural community of High School Tennessee between Knoxville and Clinton. But he moved around considerably during his 82 year lifetime. He had also held a variety of jobs. Before my time, he had been a well driller and a house painter. He even sold mason shoes on the side, and I'm sure that he enjoyed every minute of it, even if he never made much profit. Paw was the proverbial jack of all trades master of none, unless you count storytelling. He was an avid student of politics, politicking as a precinct worker for innumerable elections.

His yard always seemed to have one or more campaign signs in it. Paw also had some fame, at least locally, as a musician. In fact, he and my grandmother met and fell in love at a rollicking barn dance at which he was playing and singing. Carl Bean, a distant relative and a frequent performer at the now world famous Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee, remembered recording Paw's singing The Name Song, which mentions about every name imaginable. I faintly remember Paw's playing his guitar and singing that song and a lot of other humorous ballads, but I more clearly recall his singing old-fashioned hymns. For years, he led singing in Little Mount Harmony Baptist Church in High School.

There, at his funeral, the mourners sang his favorite hymn, When I've Gone the Last Mile of the Way, before we laid him to rest in the family plot in the cemetery behind the white clapboard church. Perhaps it was his breadth of experience, his length and variety of life that provided grist for Paw's story mill. Many of his stories involved himself. Others were about people he had known or had worked with or for. But some of his stories were renditions of stories he had heard others tell, but always with his own interpretations and embellishments thrown in to give them a homey personal flavor.

As a kid, I used to sit with him on his blue-painted wooden porch on many warm afternoons staring out across Raccoon Valley Road toward the Southern Railroad tracks and listen to him tell stories to whoever would listen. He sat in a homemade rocking chair that was held together by innumerable layers of paint and stared off into the distance, rather than looking at me or whoever else might be happening by for a visit, as he spun his tails. He was perpetually moving, incessantly tapping his foot on the porch planks. Occasionally he patted the wide arm of the rocker with his hand for emphasis. Sometimes his feet, as though moved by an uncontrollable urge, burst forth with energy, tapping out a brief but lively buck dance routine.

When the urge for motion had apparently been satisfied, his feet got still for a while. An occasional car often passed, and Pa threw up his hand in a friendly wave. "'Who was that, Pa?'

I would ask. "'Oh, that was so-and-so,' he responded. "'He knew more people, and more people knew him than I've even met. "'Seeing the person who had just passed reminded him of a story, and off he went with another tale. Infrequently someone whom he didn't know would pass. To my query about who it was, Pa usually responded, "'I don't know him.

He must be from off somewhere else.' "'Pa dropped out of school in the fourth grade. "'We were working on short division,' he explained to me one day, "'and the teacher said that tomorrow we would start on long division.

I took one look at those problems and never went back.' "'In spite of his limited formal education, Pa was an intelligent man. He read a lot, and had a vocabulary that surprised me as a college student. On the end table beside his chair, which sat behind the front door of his house, was always a magazine or two.

The Knoxville Journal, perhaps a copy of The Watchdog, grocer-politician Coon Hunter Cas Walker's political scandal sheet, and a big, worn Bible. "'Although Pa probably never read Mark Twain's instructions on how to tell a good story effectively, he was an expert at doing exactly what Twain advised. Like Twain, Pa made a big deal out of insignificant minor details in his stories. For example, during a story, he would worry over what day of the week the event about which he was telling actually happened, what the weather had been that day, what year it was, or whether the event had happened in Clinton or in Kingsport or on Chestnut Ridge or beside Bull Run Creek. He quite often diverged innumerable times during a story, burying stories within stories, but finally finding his way back to complete the original story just when listeners were beginning to think he had lost his way entirely. Yet he somehow always left his listeners wanting to hear more, or he would use the just finished story as a springboard into the next story. Invariably a train would come through during one of Pa's stories. He stopped his story in mid-sentence and rocked silently amid the rumble of the diesel locomotives and the click-clack of iron wheels on shiny rails, counting the freight cars as they went by.

When the caboose had passed from view down the track, he picked up right where he had left off without missing so much as a word. Sometimes Nanny was sitting with us. She too sometimes entered into Pa's storytelling, usually to argue with him over one of the many insignificant details of his story. Sometimes, discerning the story that Pa was about to tell just as he began it, declared, Good Lord, Fred, you know better than to tell that.

Because he knew so many people, Pa had a lot of visitors, especially on Sunday afternoons. I suspect that many of those visitors came not so much to talk to Pa as to listen to him tell stories. I think that he was totally unaware of his own storytelling prowess.

He was just being himself. Perhaps that is the very quality that makes Appalachian storytellers unique. Like Pa, they just do what comes natural. Storytelling is an important way in which my generation and countless ones before it learned of its heritage. And it is a part of our heritage that must be preserved and fostered, a skill that must be passed on to our children and to their children for generations to come. And a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to Dennis Peterson. Check out Dennis's website at dennislpeterson.com.

Frederick Newman Summers, aka, Paul Welldriller, house painter, shoe salesman, singer of songs, and teller of stories. The story of Pa here on Our American Stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.

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Purchase All-Free Clear Mega Packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we continue here on Our American Stories, and we love to tell stories about every facet of American life. And periodically, those are faith stories because we know that faith animates so many Americans in their walk and in their day-to-day lives. Elizabeth Elliott has been described as one of the most influential Christian women of the 20th century. Let's get right into the story.

Here's Greg Henglaar. Through Gates of Splendor is a 1957 best-selling book written by Elizabeth Elliott. Upon release, the book was so popular that it competed with John F. Kennedy's profiles and courage in terms of sales. Through Gates of Splendor tells the story of Operation Alka, an attempt by five American missionaries, Jim Elliott, the author's husband, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, pilot Nate Saint, and Roger Udarian, a participant at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, to reach the Alka tribe of Eastern Ecuador.

All five men were killed by the tribe. In 1967, a documentary film, also titled Through Gates of Splendor, was narrated by Elizabeth Elliott herself. Thanks to the folks at Vision Video, we are about to hear this story. Here's Elizabeth Elliott. The Republic of Ecuador, 3,000 air miles due south of New York City, is one of our friendly South American neighbor nations.

Quito, its capital city, is just below the equator, 9,000 feet up in the Andes. This is where the story began. At one time or another, all of us jungle missionaries stayed with Nate and Marge Saint in their rustic and thoroughly functional house. Marge managed to find time to take care of her three children and supply the jungle missionaries with everything from fresh beef and fruits to screens and nails. Whenever Nate took off with supplies, it was Marge who bought, stored, packed, weighed, and even helped Nate load them into the plane. She kept his ground log, knew his position in the air, and stood by at all times with shortwave radio. The friendly Quechua's, with whom Jim, Pete, and Ed worked, all knew Nate's little yellow plane and weren't afraid of it. They even begged for rides.

Even some of the well-known tribe of head shrinkers called Jivaros had heard the words of the Lord Jesus from Marge and others, and some had come to believe. Nate was very ingenious. He invented a sort of pod on the wing struts, which would release a parachute with supplies. When Jim and I were just married, we opened a new station at a place called Puyo Pungu.

For five months, we had no airstrip, and Nate dropped some of our supplies to us by parachute. When the airstrip at Puyo Pungu finally passed Nate's testing procedure, and he made his first landing with us, we were as excited as the Indians. It gave us hopes of opening more stations, of getting around more often to visit the Indians. There was one group of Indians no one had ever visited and come out alive. They were the Aucas, feared even by neighboring Indian tribes. One day when Nate had flown into Arajuna, where Ed and Mary Lou lived, they decided to make another search. Everyone knew they were there, somewhere in the jungle. Aucas had killed a Quechua Indian near Ed's station only a few months before. The five fellows had talked and prayed a lot about reaching these people, but it seemed a very remote possibility until that day in September 1955. Ed and Nate were just about to turn around and fly for home when they saw the house. They didn't see any people, but there was no question about it.

It was an Aucas house. Long before this, Nate had devised an air-to-ground exchange by means of a bucket suspended on a long cord from the plane. He even dropped a telephone so we could talk back and forth with the plane. As the plane circled slowly in the air, the bucket dropped to the vortex of the cone.

Don't ask how he figured it out. Aviation experts are still trying. This, the boys decided, was just what they would use to try and contact the Aucas. Years before, when the shell plane had dropped gifts, the Aucas thought they had fallen from the stomach of the plane because it had been wounded or frightened by the lances they had thrown. So it was important that the Indians see that the new visitors had the power to give or withhold the gift right up to the moment of delivery. For 15 weeks, they made regular flights over the village, dropping gifts free-fall with streamers attached so the Indians could find them easily. When the boys began to make bucket drops, the Aucas even built a platform so they could get up nearer the plane. You can imagine the excitement when one day the Indians sent back a roasted monkey in the bucket. Subsequent flights brought feathers, combs, even a live parrot. Encouraged that the Aucas had accepted the gifts and returned offerings of their own, the men searched constantly for some clearing where the plane might land and they could carry out their mission of meeting the Aucas face-to-face. Each trip the men planned and prayed and each trip contributed something to their meager store of knowledge as to the habits and attitude of these primitive people. Finally, the day came when they believed God's time had come for them to go and meet the Aucas.

Nate had explored the Kurarai River and discovered a patch of beach on which he could land. They called it Palm Beach. Back at Shalmera, Marge had regular contact with the party on the beach, taking down the messages in a code we had devised because we wanted to keep the operation quiet until the men had made the first successful contact. While so far they had seen no Aucas, they believed they were in the area. We're probably watching their every move as the missionary party made camp on the beach.

A shaft with ribbons was stuck in the ground so the Aucas would identify the men as those who had dropped gifts from the air. Jim had prefabricated a treehouse with his electric saw in Shandia. Nate had flown it in piece by piece and they worked all day getting it up so that they would have a defensible position in case of sudden attack. While Jim and the fellows were on the beach, I was at home in Shandia listening every chance I got to the radio messages between Palm Beach and Marge.

Marge was indispensable. Whenever Nate was away, she knew where he was every hour. She knew how much gas he had on board. She'd run outside, take a look at the sky and let him know just what kind of weather he could expect for landing.

Without radio, the flying program would have been impossible. On Friday, January 6, 1956, after three days of waiting on the beach, three Aucas appeared. The fellows called the young man George. Of course, neither party understood the other except for a few words that Jim had learned from an Auca girl who had left her tribe. George seemed completely at ease, loved our insect repellent, and even asked by signs for a ride in the airplane.

The younger girl, promptly nicknamed Delilah, was fascinated with the texture of the plane, rubbing her body against the fabric and imitating with her hands when she wasn't scratching the plane's movement. Then, late in the afternoon, they left. The men waited for them to return. On Sunday at noon, Nate radioed Marge. Looks like they'll be here for the afternoon service. Pray for us. This is the day. We'll contact you at 4.30.

But at 4.30, there was only silence. And when we come back, we continue with this remarkable story. And you're listening to Elizabeth Elliott herself. And we love it when we can find material pulled from archives and hear directly from voices that are from the past.

Elizabeth Elliott's story continues here on Our American Stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare Annual Enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.

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And I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time-consuming and tedious. And there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done.

I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs.

Which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back. Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we return to our American stories and to Elizabeth Elliott. And again, we're going to go back to her storytelling and hear her concluding words from our last segment. One Sunday at noon, Nate radioed Marge. Looks like they'll be here for the afternoon service. Pray for us. This is the day.

We'll contact you at 4.30. But at 4.30, there was only silence. That is until the January 30th, 1956 issue of Life magazine hit the newsstands. The magazine costs 20 cents. Life magazine circulated to eight and a half million American homes every week. But on page 10 of this issue, there's a stark black and white photo of five young women sitting around a kitchen table.

It takes up almost the entire width of the oversized two page spread. There are half eaten sandwiches on the plates in front of them and toddlers are wiggling in their laps and on their shoulders. They're listening to a man with his back to the camera. The man is telling them about the search party that found the dead bodies of their five husbands. The Alka had speared them, all of them to death. The man has just told them that they are now widows. The headline reads, go ye and preach the gospel.

Five do and die. Within days, the story of their sacrifice had circulated around the world. People were amazed in an era of peace and prosperity that Christians were still willing to pursue something bigger than money or the American dream. The story of sacrifice and surrender for the sake of reaching a remote tribe with the gospel was compelling even to those who questioned or mocked the faith of the missionaries. And they weren't done. Most notably, Elizabeth Elliott and Nate Saint's sister, Rachel Saint.

Here again is Elizabeth Elliott. I went back to Shandia where Jim and I had lived and continued to work with the Quechua's. People all over the world began to pray for the Alka's. I prayed too, but it seemed a faithless prayer at times. I asked God to open a door somehow, but I had no idea what to suggest. I asked him to send somebody in there, somebody who could tell them what the five men had wanted to tell them, that the God who made them actually cared about them and that he was worth trusting. I told the Lord I was willing to go if he wanted me to, but that seemed absurd too. If five men had been killed, who would ever succeed? I knew that God could do it if he wanted to, and that was the reason for prayer.

Prayer is not a vain thing. In November 1958, two Alka women came out of their tribe right into a Quechua village. I met them, and they came back to Shandia to live with me. Dayumma, the Alka girl who had given Jim some help on the language, had been with Rachel Saint, Nate's sister, for several years now, and Rachel had some valuable language data which she shared with me. I used this as a basis and began to study with Mintaka and Mangkamo, the two who were with me. One day when the three got together, Dayumma, Mintaka, and Mangkamo, they said, we're going home. So they went, and Rachel and I waited for them. When they returned, they invited the three of us, including my little girl, Valerie, to go and live there. We had prayed for this. Others were praying for it too. We knew that this was God's doing. We went.

It took us three days by foot over jungle trails and streams, by canoe down the Kurarai and up the Anyangu rivers, and then by foot again to the Tiwano. Here we came face to face with Alkas. The first one we saw was Delilah, Dayumma's younger sister, the very one who had been friendly to the five men on the Kurarai Beach two days before they died. I had to keep reminding myself that these, these very people, were the ones who had killed the men. They were called one of the most savage tribes in the world. What made them savage? They were human beings. They laughed and played.

They bathed. They showed no hostility to us, and yet I learned they had their own strict ideas about right and wrong, even if they were different from ours. They believed it was wrong to kill people, except under certain conditions. Some of them said they thought the five men were cannibals.

All outsiders were cannibals, in fact. And so, of course, if they were coming to eat the Alkas, the obvious thing to do, the noble and right thing to do, was to kill them. But now, Mintaka and Mankamo and Dayumma had succeeded in convincing them that there were outsiders who were quite all right, that these foreigners would come and live in the village and tell them stories about a man named Jesus. He was a good man. They should listen to these stories and learn to talk to Jesus, to pray. So, just as Mankamo had promised me months before, her people said, yes, let them come.

We won't need to kill anymore. And so, I took up life for the Alkas. We decided that the best we could do was simply to live as much like them as we could, to share what they ate and the things they did. They were kind to Valerie and me. They gave Rachel a place to sleep in one of their shelters. They turned over a whole house, they called it a house, to Valerie and me. When the roof began to leak, they mended it for me. None of the houses was any more than a roof.

There were no walls, no floors, no doors, and no privacy. The problem of communication was a constant one. I couldn't put together more than a sentence or two, and those were very short ones. Rachel and I never ceased trying to analyze and classify the language data, trying to reproduce it verbally with the proper intonations and nasalizations and all the other things which make a foreign language, and especially an unwritten language, difficult. Just try pronouncing a W with your tongue flat in the front of your mouth. They do it in a word like mimic, and both the vowels are nasalized besides.

Valerie had no trouble. She did better with a three-year-old's memory and mimicking ability than I did with all my language files, tape recorder, and systems of mnemonics. She showed them picture books and taught them how to hold a crayon and draw.

This was the best kind of language study, the attempt to understand and to be understood. The Aucas rarely counted above three, but Thayuma explained that one day in seven was God's day, and on that day she was going to talk about him. Everyone was told to come and sit down and be quiet.

She told them simple stories from the Old Testament or stories of Jesus from the New. Thayuma told them that Jesus says we must not kill, so right away some of the men stopped making spears. There were occasions when they needed to spear a wild pig, so with careful explanation to us about what they were for, they made new ones. These men received us as their own relatives.

They were the same ones who killed Jim and Nate and Rog and Pete and Ed. They had their own reasons. God had his for allowing it to happen when five men had asked him to guide them and had trusted him for this guidance and protection.

They had sung before they left home that last morning the hymn to the tune of Finlandia. We rest on thee, our shield and our defender. We go not forth alone against the foe, strong in thy strength, safe in thy keeping tender.

We rest on thee, and in thy name we go. They succeeded, not in converting the Alcas, not even in speaking to them of the name of Jesus, which the Alcas had never heard. The Indians could not have imagined the real reason for these white men being on that beach. They simply took them as a threat to their own way of life and speared them, but the men succeeded. They did the thing they had set out to do. They had obeyed God.

They had taken literally his words. The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. And great job catching that and snagging it.

That's Greg Hengler catching that piece and you were listening to Elizabeth Elliott. And what a faith story indeed in the end, so much of a faith walk if you've had one or taking one or thinking about taking one has to do merely with obedience and doing what your God commands you to do. And sometimes those are hard things. Terrific storytelling indeed about faith.

Elizabeth Elliott's story here on Our American Stories. T-Mobile for Business knows companies want more than a one size fits all approach to support. I want the world. So we provide 360 support customized to your business from discovery through post deployment. You'll get a dedicated account team and expertise from solutions engineers and industry advisors already right now.

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Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-15 11:11:29 / 2023-02-15 11:26:48 / 15

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