Movie "The GrandFathers" (2007)

My Review: In 1956 a group of young missionaries was killed by the aucas (or Waodani) tribe in the amazon jungle in Ecuador. They were speared to death by the people they came to serve. One of those missionaries was Nate Saint. His grandchild Jesse Saint, in a very personal and touching narration, tell us his own story. The movie starts with Jesse talking about his family, including his father's sister Rachel, who also lived as  missionary among the same tribe that had killed her brother. When she died, Jesse's father, Steve,  inherited her house, and the indians invited Steve to live among them. So there they went to live in the jungle. He described all the difficulties they faced, with flies in the "bathroom", tarantulas etc. He starts developing a friendship with Mincaye, whom after a while he starts calling grandfather. He even tells his tale of killing a deer. Students from a Washington college, participating in an anthropology course, went there to visit them. They were amazed of the reconciliation among all the people there, when they figured out that those among them had killed some of the relatives of the missionaries. The missionaries told that they were the same persons but with different hearts. 

This film show us in reality what many of us learn in theory but are afraid to apply to our own lives. Making peace with our enemy. This is hard. Forgive those who hurt us so badly. This is even harder. This inspirational film has been awarded The Dove Foundation seal of approval. It completes a trilogy produced by EthnoGraphic Media (EGM) that includes "End of the Spear" (2006) and "Beyond the Gates of Splendor" (2005). Although I did not watch neither of the previous movies, it did not felt like the story was missing something. It stands by itself. I recommend this film to any church that sends missionaries all over the world and to anyone in need of watching stories of reconciliation to apply them to their own lives.

The film was directed by Jim Hanon and produced by Mart Green and B&B Media Group, Inc was kind enough to send me a copy for reviewing through their Blog Review Program. Thanks you very much for this inspiring film.

Length of movie: 54 minutes