Most conservative Christians know the beginning of the story well (as does almost any American who was old enough to remember the original event, which happened just over 50 years ago). Five missionaries speared to death in the Amazon jungle by the very people they went to reach. It was the subject of a book "Through the Gates of Splendor", by Elisabeth Elliot, one of the widows of the five men who went back to the culture known only to them at the time as the "Aucas".

This book is Steve Saint's journey from the funeral of his aunt, Rachel Saint (sister of his father Nate, the pilot on the ill-fated mission) a missionary who had spent 36 years among the tribe who are known among themselves as the Waodani; and forward as he worked to help the tribe learn self reliance in a culture that was becoming increasingly dependent on the outside world for help.

The Waodani were once one of the most violent cultures on earth, with a mortality rate of over 60%. To live beyond the age of thirty was to be considered "old". The work that Rachel Saint and others had done in the nearly forty years between the now legendary mission trip in 1956 and the time this story begins had done much to eliminate the violence and extreme fear of outsiders that had predominated the culture, but it had also made the Waodani increasingly dependent on others for their survival, with no economy to support that dependence.

This book details much of Steve Saint's coming to grips with the nature of the problem and the realization that, if he wanted to HELP the Waodani, the best way to do it would be to wean themselves from dependence on the material goods he and other outsiders could provide. He was coming to grips with one of the truest criticisms of the modern missionary movement: the simple fact that sometimes, despite the best of intentions, the presence of these missionaries could cause as much harm in a society as good. It is a story of the faith of a family that was willing to sacrifice material success in America for a year of living in thatched huts with all manner of jungle wildlife overhead and where death was as much a fact of life as any other activity. But it is more than that. It is also a story of reconciliation and healing for a man whose children learned to love the very man who had killed their grandfather some decades back as their own grandfather.

While I love to read Christian literature, I find much of it to be less than substantial and preachy, usually ending with a personal "call to commitment" at the end. This book did not fall into that trap, but met the standards of a compellingly interesting story with a surprisingly contemporary theme, and lacked entirely the call to commitment that is almost ubiquitous in such stories. In other words, you could read it as a nonChristian and not be wholly offended, in my opinion. The last two or three chapters of the book seemed rushed and I wouldn't have minded if the book had been a little longer with greater exposition on some of these details. But that does not significantly detract from an otherwise quality read. I would give it 3 1/2 out of five stars.