On January 8, 1956 when five missionaries were brutally slaughtered in Ecuador by the spears of the Auca Indians, the Flinners were young missionaries with the Church of the Nazarene, assigned to begin our ministry with the Aguaruna Indians just a few miles across the jungle from where that massacre occurred. When I saw the gruesome photos of that killing, I knew that afternoon God was calling me to work with a primitive tribe of people like the Aucas. This book tells the story of how God worked out that plan in my life.
God found me when I was twelve years old and impressed upon me that I would be a missionary. But I was only a kid in sixth grade. That was 1936. From that day forward I knew that somehow, somewhere, someday this kid was going to be a missionary. I studied, and trained and learned everything I thought I would need to fulfill that call. Years later God found a girl in West Virginia, gave her a clear understanding that she too was to be a missionary, and arranged for us to meet at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. When we got married Genny was especially happy, because she did not relish the thought of going to a distant foreign land as an old maid. A span of eighteen years of training and preparation passed from 1936 to 1954. God saw we were ready, and sent us to Peru, South America with our two little girls. We were fledgling missionaries and the adventure had begun.
