Nathanael Saint (30 August 1923 – 8 January 1956) was a missionary pilot who, along with four others, was killed in Ecuador while attempting to make contact with the Huaroni people. “It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.”–Philippians 1:29

In January, 1956 Nate Saint, Jim Elliot and three other missionaries landed a plane on a sandbar of the Curaray river in Ecuador, to make contact with the Huaroni tribe. The missionaries went willingly, and they never came back. Only recently have the Huaroni men of that tribe, now Christians, revealed what happened in the stillness that followed the murders.  Nate’s son, Steve Saint, writes:

Dawa, one of the three Huaroni women who watched while the missionaries were slain, told me that after the killing she saw cowodi (angels) above the trees, singing.  She didn’t know what this kind of music was until she later heard recordings of Aunt Rachel’s and became familiar with the sound of a choir. Mincaye and Kimo confirmed that they heard the singing and saw what Dawa describes as angels along the ridge above the beach. Apparently all the participants saw this bright multitude in the sky and felt they should be scared, because they knew it was something supernatural. 

Dawa later said that this supernatural experience was what drew her to God when she later heard of him from Nate Saint’s widow, Rachel Saint. One day Rachel Saint put on a record of Christian hymns. Mincaye realized that he had heard this same music in the stillness that followed the death of the five missionaries.

Fellow missionaries, In the stillness that followed Steve Saint’s death, the Hourani people overheard the “welcome home” hymn of the heavenly choir. So, when you lose heart because the going is terribly hard, when suffering is more than you can bear, you may not get to hear the cowodi sing. But, I believe God is giving you this story now to hold you tomorrow. May God give you faith that in the silence, which follows the moment of martyrdom, there is a homecoming.  There is a homecoming.

Fellow missionaries, we cannot pass from Revelation 5:9 to Revelation 7:9 without passing through Revelation 6:9:

Revelation 5:9. When the angel had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. ⁹ They sing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Revelation 6:9. When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number would be complete both of their fellow servants and of their brothers and sisters, who were soon to be killed as they themselves had been killed.

Revelation 7:9-10. After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

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