Purpose in Life
By Douglas W. Dusek
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When Douglas Dusek was a
nine-year old lad he became enamored of the jungle, just by
reading books about it. He began to pray that someday he might go
and see the primitive peoples and come to know them as beings for
whom Jesus died. When he was twenty years old, the opportunity
came. He was sent down to the Brazilian jungle, where he became
flight engineer on a search and rescue plane. On March 4, 1944,
the crew was forced to crash land, and for two days Douglas
shared in the kindness and hospitality of the simple jungle folk.
Last year, through the financial sacrifices of his children, he
returned to work with a tribe of Compa Indians, who live on the
periphery of an area where people still live naked and wild.
Douglas is devoting his life to helping those Indians who have
found Jesus, and are taking the message of hope to their own
people. This will serve to clue you in on the story that follows.
--Editor.
As I sat there, just outside of the incomplete clinic, I saw Abrahan and several of his friends shaving down the outside of a one-piece dugout canoe. They were put-
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"Abrahan," I said, "I have just come to realize that my last dream in life has become a reality. It is a dream left over from my boyhood, which came to me just after I had read my first book about the jungle. I told him of how I had always longed to live in the jungle with jungle people, and how it had finally become an obsession with the passing years. This fact made Abrahan very happy and it showed in his grin.
"Abrahan, I'd like to ask you a question." In the Spanish language he had learned at the Mission school during the six years of education allotted to each Compa Indian in that region, he bid me to ask it. In my overjoyed state I briefly recounted for him some of the many dreams and wishes I had, and of how they materialized--some of them even beautifully. Then I asked him, "If you could have but one wish granted in your life, what would it be?"
"My only wish is to be a missionary and teach those who have not yet learned the message of God and Christ." He went on to say that he had been into the wild region with his uncle who was the first missionary to go into that area and spread the word of God. While back there, Abrahan saw untold suffering, just as it had been with his grandparents who came from the wild region.
"What a pity," Abrahan said. "They live such meaningless lives for they know nothing of God, or that He is the creator. What am I going to do to save them? I must find a way!"
As Abrahan finished telling of his one life's dream, he informed me that he stayed on working at the mission in the hope of earning an outboard motor for the canoe he was building. The currents through which he had to go would be far too great for any paddle.
When I heard him tell of his one wish in life, it came as an answer to my own prayers. Before I went down to the jungle I had been in need of a great purpose. I had prayed for God to give me a worthwhile purpose in life, and this he did when he introduced me to Abrahan and others like him. For now my sole desire is to help them translate their dreams into reality, and to go and help them proclaim the word.
I told Abrahan that I would write a story and if I could sell it for enough to secure a motor, that motor would be for his canoe. Two days later I wrote the story and in the best Spanish I could muster, I read it to Abrahan. The first thing I did when I returned to the United States was to earn a 1971 model, 25 horsepower outboard motor for Abrahan, so that he could more adequately fulfill his life's dream. What better purpose is there for me on earth than to help this humble saint as he goes about in his wild jungle world, preaching the Good News to people who are three languages away from me?
(Brother Douglas W. Dusek lives on Big Sandy Route, Kingman, Arizona 86401).