About the first week of the new year, I remembered that 50 years ago five missionaries were killed by Auca Indians, in Ecuador. We heard the news from a friend who was involved with Mission Aviation Fellowship. One of the five men killed was pilot Nate Saint, a member of MAF. It was on January 6th, our oldest daughter's fourth birthday. She remembers how a feeling of dread hung over us after that phone call. The missionaries were missing. It wan't until later that they were confirmed dead by the authorities.
When LIFE Magazine came out with a two page spread of the five widows sitting around a kitchen table, hearing the details of the killing, I cut the article out, and saved it in a folder in the file cabinet. Every article about this event that I came across, from that day on, I filed away in that folder. Reader's Digest, MAF magazine, King's Business, newspaper articles, Guide Post, and so on, all the way up to 1998.
I got out my file folder and showed the papers to my son John. I asked him what he thought about selling the papers on EBAY. Afterall, I am 77, a widow, and need to clear out all the paper stuff I have stashed all over the house. I wanted to get it into the hands of someone who would appreciate it.
I photographed a few of the articles, and he helped me upload them with my story, and we offered the whole folder for $0.99 as a beginning to the auction. (He pointed out that if I begin LOW, it actually costs me less). Someone bid on it right away. The auction was going to go for seven days.
In the first few days, it rose from $0.99 to a few dollars.
One lady contacted me through Ebay service, asking if we could give a "Buy it Now" price. We wrote back, no, that Ebay's rules are that once there are bids on an item, the sale must go on, with no changes. She was hoping to buy it, as her daughter just married the grandson of Nate Saint last summer, and she wanted to get the articles as a gift for him. That sort of story really tugs at my heart. I was wishing there was a way to help her win the auction.
Another bidder wrote to me, telling me the story that Roger Youdarian, one of the five men killed, was her father's brother. She was about 9 when the event happened. She remembered when she was 5 years old, they went to the dock, in Southern California, to see Roger and his family off for South America. She loved being around him.
Her father had saved all the articles about his brother, and put them in a suitcase. When he had to have a care-giver come take care of him, the care-giver threw out the suitcase, and other things she thought he no longer needed, and eventually ran the man into bankruptcy. So, for over ten years, this bidder had been looking in antique and collectible stores, for the 1956 LIFE Magazine article in particular.
I found that out, by asking her how she found my ad on Ebay.
Now, in the meantime, announcements on the radio and TV told about a new documentary film coming out based on the true story of the Waudani Indians spearing five missionaries. It turns out that the word Auca is a derogatory term, meaning "Naked Savage." Now that the Indians have believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are no longer savages, and are no longer naked. The new film is titled "End of the Spear."
So, John suggested that we wait a week before uploading my "item," so there would be more interest in having it. And we changed our title to get rid of the word Auca, and include the words End of the Spear. The sub title was, "Including the 1956 LIFE Magazine report."
This past weekend, we went to see the movie. It was excellent, and the portrayal of the brutal Indians was horrifying. The child actor was excellent, as he portrayed Steve, the little son of the pilot Nate Saint. Steve narrates the film, and actually does the flying of the little plane in all the flying scenes.
Our auction began to climb. That afternoon, I took a nap, and John came and woke me up saying there were only three minutes left. The selling price began to double. We watched it double and double again.
The lady who won the auction, is the one who had been looking for the LIFE magazine for over 10 years. After we shipped the package to her, she wrote that it had arrived safely, and was excited to find that there were many articles which they had never seen. Her mother was reading one of the articles right now. I am glad these got into the right hands.
