Movie Review:THE END OF THE SPEAR

I am forever trying to come up with gifts for my Michigan niece and nephews that don’t involve a lot of technology and that no one else will think of. This is not an easy task. The oldest Michigan nephew is in the seventh grade and has been studying Anne Frank, so I thought maybe he would appreciate a recording of Corrie Ten Boom’s THE HIDING PLACE. However, when I placed my order with Amazon, I was told that the recording might be on backorder until April, so it hardly suited my purposes. (I should have gone to the Focus on the Family website).

Instead, I brainstormed and decided that maybe he’d like the movie END OF THE SPEAR. I have to admit it interested me. At one time, pre the hubby, I was interested in becoming a Wycliffe Bible Translator. END OF THE SPEAR is about Nate Saint and four of his friends who were missionaries in Ecuador in the mid-1950s. Saint made contact with the Waodani Indians, who were then called the Auca, but he and his friends ended up being murdered by them.

When I was thinking about being a missionary, I learned that part of the job is to live with the people you are serving. You try to make contact with people in their own language so that you can get the message of the Gospel across to them in a way they’ll understand. That’s exactly what Saint and his friends tried to do, but because of a deception, the Indians, who had appeared friendly, killed them.

I have to admit I cried as I watched the movie. It was hard to watch young Steve worry about his dad and even worse to have his worst fear come true. My heart was full as I watched the wives and families of the murdered men continue to reach out to the Indians.

As hard as all this was, it gave a horrible event a somewhat happy ending. Good came out of the darkness of the murders. Although the name of Jesus is not used in the film, the Gospel message comes through loud and clear. In true missionary form, God is referred to as Waengongi, the Indian word for His name. The Indians are told that God sent His Son, who was speared but did not spear back.

I wonder if all that would have made sense to them had they not seen the actions of the men they killed. The missionaries had guns and the Indians knew it, but they never fought back. Just like Jesus. That seems to be the fact that finally reaches the Indians.  They begin to come to Christ.

I can’t imagine the courage that it took to live through having your father killed, much less the courage it took to lovingly serve the people who murdered him, but those actions made a difference when they happened and I am sure the truth in them will reach people as they watch the story. As Steve Saint tells his father’s murderer , “No one took my father’s life-he gave it.” Despite the violent deaths Nate Saint and his friends suffered, I am hoping that my nephew will see that, even if things don’t turn out the way you want them to, good men do make a difference. Sometimes sacrifice is involved.

Of Wedding Rings and Other Things

I am blessed with a wonderful husband, so articles about the fact that married people are healthier don’t really surprise me. How could you help but be healthier when you are happier? Here’s what WebMD says about marriage’s health benefits:

Across the board, married people were healthiest. “Married persons were healthier for nearly every measure of health,” says the CDC.

That was true for all ages, ethnicities, and levels of income and education. The connection between marriage and health was strongest in the youngest group, aged 18-44.

Married people were, in general, in better health than those who were divorced, widowed, never-married, or living with a partner. They were also less likely to suffer from health conditions like back pain, headaches, and serious psychological distress.

Married people were also less likely to smoke, drink heavily, and be physically inactive.

The daughter-in-law sent me an article that adds another health benefit: your wedding ring. This past Saturday, two men walked into Donnie Register’s shop at an antique market and, after asking to see a coin collection, decided to rob him. When shots were fired, Register threw up his left hand and his wedding ring deflected the bullet, saving his life. Parts of the bullet are still in Register’s middle finger and his neck, but the fragments are not life-threatening.

Donnie’s wife, Darlene, gives God the credit for saving her husband’s life.

My husband didn’t wear his wedding ring for many years because it was against the rules at work. Some people tried to remember to take theirs off and put it back on when they left, but we thought then that his not wearing the ring was the safest course of action. The hubby did, however, don his wedding ring soon after his retirement, an action which touched me very much. Having read the article about the Registers, I am now thankful the hubby has his ring for another reason.

He’ll never know when it could save his life.

Word of the Day

My son sent me his word of the day, and I am looking forward to seeing if I can work it in at school.  I haven’t done this since I taught junior high and the kids tried to stump me with actual words.  I am not sure how my students will wrap their minds around the son’s word, which is tarradiddle, meaning a a fib or pretentious nonsense.  There’s PLENTY of pretentious nonsense in a high school!