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Title : A MODERN MISSIONARY'S CALLING
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A MODERN MISSIONARY'S CALLING

John Chau Aced Missionary Boot Camp. Reality Proved a Harsher Test.

By Jeffrey Gettleman, Kai Schultz, Ayesha Venkataraman and Hari Kumar

The New York Times

30 November 2018

Just months before undertaking the most forbidding journey in his life as a young missionary to a remote Indian Ocean island, John Allen Chau was blindfolded and dropped off on a dirt road in a remote part of Kansas.

After a long walk, he found a mock village in the woods inhabited by missionaries dressed in odd thrift-store clothes, pretending not to understand a word he said. His role was to preach the gospel. The others were supposed to be physically aggressive. Some came at him with fake spears, speaking gibberish.

It was part of an intensive and somewhat secretive three-week missionary training camp. Mary Ho, the international executive leader for All Nations, the organization that ran the training, said, “John was one of the best participants in this experience that we have ever had.”

For Mr. Chau, 26, the boot camp was the culmination of years of meticulous planning that involved linguistics training and studying to become an emergency medical technician, as well as forgoing full-time jobs so he could travel and toughen himself up.

He did it all with the single-minded goal of breaking through to the people of North Sentinel Island, a remote outpost of hunters and gatherers in the Andaman Sea who had shown tremendous hostility to outsiders.

It was an obsession. Ever since Mr. Chau had learned in high school through a missionary website, the Joshua Project, that the North Sentinel people were perhaps the most isolated in the world, he was hooked. Much of what he did the rest of his short life was directed toward this mission.

He would pull up Google Maps and point to a green speck in a place no one had ever heard of — the Andaman Islands, far off the coast of India — and tell his friends with a buoyant smile: “I’m going there.”

In the 21st century, it is a marvel that a place like North Sentinel even exists.

A tropical island, it is home to a few dozen people living a lifestyle thousands of years old and speaking a language no outsiders understand. Visitors have been driven back and killed by islanders armed with bows and arrows. Mr. Chau knew this.

A review of hundreds of pages of his journals and blog postings, as well as interviews with two dozen people from around the world — fellow missionaries, family members and relatives of fishermen in the Andaman Islands — reveal a portrait of a joyful adventurer with a zest for life who resisted all warnings, despite being told repeatedly he might be killed.

“My folks tried to talk him out of it,’’ said John Ramsey, a friend. “He said it was what he felt called to do, and he was pretty made up in his mind already so it didn’t seem like persuasion would do a lot of good anyway.”

As he prepared for the mission, Mr. Chau stepped up his exercise routine, doing push-ups, jogging and being careful what he ate.

Friends said he did not expect to die and had taken all precautions he could think of to survive, including packing what he called an “initial contact response kit” with dental forceps to remove arrows.

Many of his friends admitted they knew the mission was extremely dangerous — and illegal because for years the Indian government has prohibited outsiders from visiting the island.

But they also said they were in awe of what he was trying to do, seeing Mr. Chau as a pure expression of their faith.

His mission failed. After landing on North Sentinel in mid-November wearing only black underpants — Mr. Chau thought that would make the islanders feel more comfortable — he struggled to communicate.

The islanders were aggressive, as they have been with just about everyone else who had tried to make contact with them.

They shouted at him. They shot arrows. Then they killed him.

His body is still on the beach. Indian police officers are afraid to retrieve it, lest they increase the hostilities.

His friends mourn the loss of someone they describe as a real character: good looking but perennially single, always exploring, even landing a beef jerky sponsorship that gave him all the free jerky he could eat for his travels.

But many fellow Christians, including some of his friends, are uncomfortable with what he did.

“He was caught up in a dangerous set of ideologies that helped drive him to do something so unwise,” said Kaleb Graves, a student pastor in Arkansas who befriended Mr. Chau at a linguistics institute last year.

“He should have known better.”

NOTE:  The full Times article about Chau is here:

https://ift.tt/2E7HhPw

I've never quite understood the whole "missionary calling" business although it's been a world wide phenomenon for centuries.  Sure, spreading Christianity is the goal but I'm not sure why it is that Christianity is a better alternative than the kinds of practices non-Christian "natives" observe.  On the other hand, my one up close experience with missionaries as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa was quite positive and, indeed, pleasant.   I'd come down with what I surmised was a case of malaria, such illness being as common as palm trees in our nest-to-the-Sahara small town.  We had no resident medical person in town so on my way down to Abidjan to seek medical attention, I stopped off at a Mission in Korhogo, Korhogo being the larger town where we usually spent the night after a full day's trek in a jammed packed bus to transfer to the train that ran down to the Cote d'Ivoire's capital.  

I was impressed with the Baptist Mission's cleanliness, sparkling clean building interiors (not a condition I was used to) and the stores of medical supplies everywhere.  I was seen by a nurse who did conclude that, yes, I did have a mild case of malaria.  Since I was on my way down to see our Peace Corps doc - I had telephoned him before I left - she did not prescribe any medications.   I also spent the night there which was a glorious and comfortable respite with excellent food and an abundance of attention.

In Abidjan, the doctor confirmed her diagnosis and prescribed a series of anti-malarial drugs that actually worked.  I never had a relapse.  

Still, I don't quite understand the missionary drive.   Hey, I was raised a Christian but I have no interest in converting anyone anywhere.  

Take Care And Have A Great Day!  

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