___By Chris Turner
___SBC International Mission Board
___PUCALLPA, Peru--The amber glow of burning candles warms the small room where Marty McAnally has strung his mosquito netting. This has been home for nearly two weeks.
___He holds a penlight as he scratches at a coloring book with a colored pencil. He's stayed up late tonight; it's almost 8 o'clock. Bedtime has been closer to seven.
___Under normal conditions, McAnally's behavior would seem peculiar. But sitting in the
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TRADITIONAL face painting used in Dulce Gloria to protect from the sun.
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middle of the Peruvian jungle with no electricity, no running water and cockroaches the size of business cards hustling across the floor, the conditions in the community of Dulce Gloria are anything but normal. The only way in or out is by single-engine plane, provided the men in the village have cleared the grass landing strip with their machetes.
___"Every day I think at least once out loud, 'I want to go home,'" McAnally says. "This is way
out of my comfort zone."
___McAnally doesn't define "home" as in Pucallpa, Peru, where he, his wife, Dena, and son, Jacob, live as International Mission Board missionaries; or home as in the Houston area where he grew up. Most days it might be a toss up.
___"Growing up in Spring, and then when I went to college (at East Texas Baptist University), I was real interested in missions but didn't have a clue as to where God was going to put me," he says. "I never dreamed it would be out here."
___Although living conditions are difficult, McAnally has adapted. The McAnallys are part of a team of IMB missionaries working among the Ashéninka, an indigenous people group that, until a year ago, had little or no access to the gospel. Less than 1 percent are
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MARTY MCANALLY works by candlelight and flashlight to color in a "storying" book he uses to tell the Asheninka people about the Christian faith.
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literate, and more than 98 percent have no knowledge of Jesus Christ.
___The coloring book is used to illustrate the Bible stories McAnally teaches two times a day. Because the Ashéninka are an orally communicating people, it is the most effective way to introduce them to God and eventually salvation through Jesus Christ. If McAnally, or one of the other members of his small team, weren't sharing the gospel with the Ashéninka, it is unlikely they'd ever hear it in their own language.
___The task appears overwhelming. There are more than 75,000 Ashéninka who speak any one of five dialects living in dense jungle and spread across thousands of square miles.
___"When I think about how daunting the task is, it overwhelms me," he says. "It is not so much what God has done among these people, it is a matter of what God is going to have to do to reach these people. Then to think he has chosen me to be a part of what he wants to do. It puts a real responsibility on us to do our best."
___Although McAnally's eight years of experience as coordinator of multi-housing
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ARIAL VIEW of the isolated Peruvian village where Marty and Dena McAnally minister.
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ministries at First Baptist Church of Houston was nothing like living in the jungle, there are some fundamental similarities. Primarily, caring for people.
___"These people are so different from who I am, but the opportunity to befriend them, hear their concerns and pray for them is an incredibly neat thing," he says. "We are getting to know these people not only from a cultural and historical perspective, but also from a spiritual perspective. That's on a level that most anthropologists would not even be able to know them."
___The Ashéninka are a people caught between two cultures. In one respect, isolation has facilitated few lifestyle changes for hundreds--perhaps thousands--of years. Homes are open platforms made of lashed-together poles covered by a thatch roof. Few have walls. Canoes are dugout trees; paddles are carved with machetes.
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ASHÉNINKA BOYS (above) use a canoe made of a dugout tree to travel the river.
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___In another respect, westernization is reaching deep into the jungle and changing the Ashéninka. Exposure to logging companies and river merchants has caused the Ashéninka to cast off their traditional dress in favor of gym shorts, jeans and rubber boots. They don't want the outsiders to think they are "backward."
___The outside world, however, has had little effect on their religious beliefs. The Ashéninka are a hunting people who live in fear of the spirits of the animals they hunt. Witch doctors often are consulted to whip up potions to appease the spirits.
___McAnally says the biggest challenge to date has been teaching the Ashéninka that Christianity is not a casual religious act to be performed along with traditional rituals.
___"We are seeing a change, however. God is working in the lives of some of the men we've been working with," he reports. "They are developing a passion for reaching their
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A GROUP of Ashéninka youth in traditional clothing.
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own people with the gospel through the storying method. They are looking at going into new communities to share the stories."
___The mission team believes it is through the men who are being discipled that a church planting movement will begin among the Ashéninka. In some areas where they've been teaching the longest, the team anticipates more than 50 percent of the people will make a decision to follow Christ within the next two years. The gospel saturation within the culture is due to the cultural traits of sharing and story telling. It is definitely a task beyond a handful of missionaries.
___"I look around here and I see these people and I think that apart from the work of God, this work is impossible," McAnally says. "There is so much lostness, and the people are so spread out. From a human standpoint, it is hopeless. But I focus on the fact that God can do it."
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WOMEN teaching children traditional crafts in Dulce Gloria.
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