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SHELL MERA, Ecuador — Sixty two years after Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) missionary Nate Saint built a 4,000-square-foot home and ministry alcove in the eastern Andean foothills, a team of workers is restoring the historic building for use as an office and training center.
Crews from North America and Ecuador traveled to the Shell Mera community that was once home base for the martyred Saint. The team began construction on June 15 to repair a home that had fallen prey to termites and the daily rain that deluges the region.
Team leader, Chris Nevins of the nonprofit construction ministry Fuel the Mission, said he hoped to complete the project in 90 days, although the timeline was contingent on funding and the availability of volunteers. Among the early volunteers for the project were Southern California residents Cameron and Teri Nevins and their son-in-law Jeff McCue,
“MAF holds so dear the history of Nate Saint's work,” said MAF President John Boyd. “This major undertaking to restore the house that Nate built with a team of missionaries is so meaningful to MAF, not just for today, but for the future.
“Young people are taking an interest in Nate Saint and his sacrifice. I know the Lord is going to use this project to inspire the next generation to serve the cause of Christ to the ends of the earth.”
Founded in 1945, MAF uses aviation, communications and technology to reach some of the most remote areas of the globe. Impressed with its vision, Saint dropped out of Wheaton College to serve as a pilot for Missionary Aviation Fellowship. He and his family moved to Ecuador so Saint could help to establish an airfield in Shell Mera to provide supplies to the missionaries. In 1956, Saint was one of five missionaries who were killed by the Auca Indians to which they were ministering.
The murder of the missionaries was chronicled in a Life magazine article that included a 10-page photo spread, including a shot of the missionaries’ wives sitting in the Saint kitchen when they received word their husbands had been murdered. The publicity of the group’s sacrifice helped fuel interest in missions work. Saints’ sister, Rachel, continued her brother’s work, as did Nate’s son, Steve who travels the globe with his father’s killer, now a born-again Christian. The Saint story was told in the 2005 documentary “End of the Spear.”
According to MAF, Saint designed the large facility as a guesthouse, radio center and his family's living quarters. He supervised the five-missionary construction team that built it in September and October of 1948. Helping Saint on the original construction was Frank Drown, who also led the search team into the jungle to find the bodies of the missing missionaries. More than have a century later, Drown two nephews Roger and Richard Drown, and his great-niece Joelle Drown were helping with the rehab.
As the house aged, though, its problems became too costly to fix. In addition to moisture and termites, earthquakes, volcanic ash and shifting soil were its perpetual enemies. In 2002, MAF ceased using it. Photos of the house are featured in “The Savage, My Kinsman,” a book by missionary widow Elisabeth Elliot, whose husband Jim died with Saint.
Despite being abandoned, it’s still a popular draw among tourists, with as many as six van loads of visitors stopping on any single day.
“People come from all over the world to see it because of what God did with ordinary men,” said Nevins, who was inspired by “Jungle Pilot,” Saint’s biography.
The construction project still needed to raise $22,000 of the estimated $75,000 in costs by mid July.
The plans call for the kitchen and radio room to be restored to their original state. The rest of the house will be dismantled and rebuilt into mission offices and a training room, with an apartment for a missionary family in the back. Reusable materials, like the termite-resistant jungle mahogany used to build the house, will go into the new facility. The house's electric and plumbing systems will be redone. It will be wired for Internet. A “wall of remembrance” will trace the history of the house.
For more information on the project, visit www.fuelthemission.org.
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