Nothing New

“We were living in the village … long ago when the baby died, and that is when I began to believe, and I went on believing.” – Carolinadaté, an Ayoré woman.

Howard and Maxine Morarie served the Lord in Bolivia back in the 1950s with Ethnos360 (then known as New Tribes Mission). They and the Ostewig family ministered among the Ayoré people in a newly established village. Recently, as Maxine was translating some Ayoré testimonies into English and Spanish, she came across the sentence above that showed that missionaries have been embracing and positioning to reach the unreached for decades.

Pain Brings Enlightenment

The Ostewigs little son had died. Helen Ostewig clung to her Saviour and so did not weep. This affected the Ayorés because their way of showing grief is by loud wailing. Some Ayorés were heard to say, “They must believe what they’ve been telling us — that one day, if we have faith in Jesus, we will live again. They must believe their baby will live again, and that’s why they aren’t crying.”

The Result

Maxine said, “We had often wondered about the long-term effect on the Ayorés of seeing missionaries face losing a child, and yesterday, as I translated Carolinadaté’s testimony, I came upon the ‘fruit’! Carolinadaté … is with [the Lord] because a little baby boy died in the jungles of Bolivia.”

Pray for the Ayoré church to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ.