Slash Marks the Very Good Trail

“Slash marks the very good trail.” What does that mean?

Several years ago we enjoyed the movie End of the Spear, the story of the infamous murder of five missionaries in Ecuador in 1955.

The movie was made by Steven Saint, son of one of the murdered missionaries, who spent time living in the jungle with those same Waodani (Aucas) many years after the death of his father.

Cultural sense of sin

Much about this film commends it to viewers, but what captured my imagination was the way the missionaries presented the gospel–the cultural way they explained God and Jesus. Saint told this story in a 2006 interview with Decision Magazine, about how the Waodani view sin:

“A [Waodani] actor came to me and said, “Steve, what is sin?”

“I told him that the Waodani say that sin is those things that God sees well that we don’t do and those things that God does not see well that we do do. He was one of the actors who wanted to meet the Waodani in their own territory.

“He said to me, “I want you to tell the Waodani that I, too, have lived badly, badly. But now I want to live well. Would you ask the Waodani to pray that I will live well now?”

“The Waodani were so excited. They said, “Oh yes, that’s what we say, too. We say, ‘God, You helping us, we’ll walk Your very good trail.'”

“So, the Waodani got around and prayed for the actor, that he would walk God’s trail and that God would clean his heart so that he could see the trail and that once starting, he would not veer off one way or the other.”

I like the concept that when we are following Jesus, we’re walking his very good trail. In the movie, a young Waodani woman points at the slash marks on a tree signifying the trail. She tells the person with her you have to watch for the marks to follow God.

Following the trail marker

That’s what He asks of us, too. He wants us to watch for the trail markers showing how to follow Him. Fortunately in 21st century America, we merely have to read a Bible to understand God, and see where His trail leads–to the forgiveness of sin.

I try to remember the need to explain on a person’s own terms, when I talk about who God is.

Steve Saint lived with the Waodani for years, he understood how they saw things. I’ve lived among a different tribe of people my whole life, while maintaining relationships with a lot of peculiar people.

Sometimes we don’t seem to speak the same language at all. The trail that looks clearly marked to me is a jumble of thick vines to them. It’s my creative task to figure out how to explain the good trail in a way others can see.

How about you? Can you describe different-cultural ways of telling the gospel? And how do you get your mind to think outside of the box of your own experience to reach out to someone else?