He threw himself into clubs, charities and other extracurriculars. He attended Vancouver Christian high school, a close-knit school with just 90 students across seven grades.Ī natural overachiever, he thrived. He came to count as heroes the naturalist John Muir, the explorer-missionary David Livingstone, and Bruce Olson, famous in the missionary community for converting the Bari people of South America.Ĭhau was raised in a Christian home and his family appear to have been members of the Assemblies of God, an international Pentecostal church whose members sometimes speak in tongues. He loved survival stories, like Hatchet, Gary Paulsen’s gritty young adult novel about a boy forced to live off the land after crash-landing in the Alaskan wilderness. My family stopped going on camping trips after that.” Consequently he “destroyed several sleeping bags that night. “hen I was a little kid,” he recalled in 2015, “my family went camping” during “that time of my life, I had a habit of eating wild things not meant for humans to eat, like bright red or stark white berries”. As a child he was consumed by two passions that became increasingly intertwined: outdoor adventure and Jesus Christ. He was raised by a Chinese father, a psychiatrist, and an American mother, an attorney, with two siblings. But it was not a spontaneous act of recklessness by a dim-witted thrill-seeker it was a premeditated act of recklessness by a fairly intelligent and thoughtful thrill-seeker who spent years preparing, understood the risks, including to his own life, and believed his purpose on Earth was to bring Christ to the island he considered “Satan’s last stronghold”.Ĭhau was born in Alabama but grew up in Vancouver, Washington, near the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. In a brief message posted on Chau’s Instagram account, his family pleaded for a more sympathetic understanding of the person they called “a beloved son, brother, uncle, and best friend”, who “loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people”.Īfter talking with people who knew him, and delving into the blogposts, diary writings, photos, and social media he left behind, a complicated picture emerges.Ĭhau’s decision to contact the Sentinelese, who have made it clear over the years that they prefer to be left alone, was indefensibly reckless. “I’m sorry,” another commented, “but what a deluded idiot.” In this handout photo provided by the Indian coastguard and Survival International in 2004, a man with the Sentinelese tribe aims his bow and arrow at an Indian coast guard helicopter. “Just a dumb American who thought the tribals needed ‘Jesus’ when the tribals already lived in harmony with God and nature for years without outside interference.” “John Allen Chau is not a martyr,” responded one Twitter user, capturing the prevailing sentiment on social media. The Sentinelese, hunter-gatherers who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Andaman island chain, are considered one of the Earth’s last uncontacted peoples their entire tribe is believed to number several dozen people. Ho also told news organizations that Chau had received 13 immunizations, though Survival International, an indigenous rights group, disputes that these would have prevented infection of the isolated Sentinelese people. “We pray that John’s sacrificial efforts will bear eternal fruit in due season.” The “privilege of sharing the gospel has often involved great cost”, Dr Mary Ho, the organization’s leader, said in a statement.
John was an “innocent child”, his father told me, who died from an “extreme” vision of Christianity taken to its logical conclusion.Īll Nations, the evangelical organization that trained Chau, described him as a martyr. When Chau’s death became international news, many Christians were keen to disavow his actions Chau’s father believes the American missionary community is culpable in his son’s death. In November, on an obscure island in the Indian Ocean, Chau – a 26-year-old American adventure blogger, beef-jerky marketer, and evangelical missionary – was killed by the isolated tribe he was attempting to convert to Christianity.
0 kommentar(er)
