For our first two years in Peru Genny and I were not happy with our assignment in the capital city. That was not the kind of missionary work I wanted to do. My dream was to go someplace where no one had ever gone, and preach the Gospel so someone who had never heard; and probably never would have heard if I had not gone. The opportunity to fulfill that dream came in 1956 when I volunteered to accept the assignment to move to the jungle and work with the Aguaruna Indians.
The council agreed with me that we had to move our mission deeper into the jungle to be closer to the center of the tribe that was migrating down river to escape encroaching civilization. To have an effective ministry to the tribe we would have to find a new location and begin our ministry from scratch.
In this chapter I hire two Aguarunas to accompany me on an exploratory trip several days down river on a raft. The tribal people I met along the way had never seen a White Man.
We traveled on for several days before I discovered a beautiful location at the mouth of the Cusu River. I was perplexed, wondering why no Indians had built on such an attractive site; but when I looked up into the trees and saw the high water mark I understood why. If I were to build there I would have to carve a shelf out of the hillside about fifteen feet higher than where I was standing. It had never occurred to an Indian that they could have done that. There was no indication any Indians lived around there. None showed up to welcome us. I liked this place because no one lived there. I didn’t intend to fight the people for their land. I knew my family would not be welcome moving into an established community. I was absolute sure this was the site to begin our new mission.
