“We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death.” “He loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people,” the family said. They said Chau was a “beloved son, brother and uncle” as well as a Christian missionary. His family posted on his Instagram on Wednesday that they forgave his killers and asked for those who helped him to be released. Police said Chau had visited the Andamans, which are scattered across the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, four times in the past three years. The Indian government recently lifted a ban on tourists going there, but Denis Giles, an activist for tribal rights in the Andamans, said state authorities still asked people to seek permission, and the status of the island was “a grey area”. Seven people including five fishermen have been arrested for helping Chau reach the island. The next morning, according to a police statement, “the fishermen saw a dead person being buried at the shore which from the silhouette of the body, clothing and circumstances appeared to be the body of John Allen Chau”. He gave the diary and letter to the fishermen and took a kayak back to the island. I still could make it back to the US somehow, as it almost seems like certain death to stay here.” Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else continue? No. “I think I could be more useful alive though. “If you want me to get actually shot or even killed with an arrow, then so be it,” he wrote, addressing God. Photograph: AFP/Getty Imagesīut his diaries revealed less certainty about the mission he was undertaking. He signed off: “ Soli deo gloria” (glory to God alone).Ī Sentinelese man aims his bow and arrow at an Indian coastguard helicopter as it flies over North Sentinel Island after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The eternal lives of this tribe is at hand and I can’t wait to see them around the throne of God worshipping in their own language, as Revelations 7:9-10 states.” Rather, please live your lives in obedience to whatever he has called you to and I’ll see you again when you pass through the veil. “Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed. “You guys might think I’m crazy in all this, but I think it’s worth it to declare Jesus to these people,” he wrote. The next day as he prepared to make another approach, Chau wrote a letter to his parents. “Well, I’ve been shot by the Sentinelese.” One of the tribespeople – “a kid probably about 10 or so years old, maybe a teenager” – fired an arrow that struck his Bible, he wrote that night, onboard the boat of fishermen he paid 25,000 rupees (£275) to smuggle him close to the island. I felt some fear but mainly was disappointed. “I paddled like I never have in my life back to the boat. I picked up the fish and threw it towards them. “I hollered: ‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you.’ I regret I began to panic slightly as I saw them string arrows in their bows. They burst out laughing most of the time, so they probably were saying bad words or insulting me. “So I got a little closer as they (about six from what I could see) yelled at me, I tried to parrot their words back to them. “I made sure to stay out of arrow range, but unfortunately that meant I was also out of good hearing range. I have no question it was to bring the gospel of Jesus to them," Mr Staver said.“I heard the whoops and shouts from the hunt,” Chau wrote in an entry that was given to several media outlets by his mother. Mr Chau went through that program in 2015. Mr Chau had wanted ever since high school to go to North Sentinel to share Christianity with the indigenous people, said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Covenant Journey, a program that takes college students on tours of Israel to affirm their Christian faith. While special permits are required, scholars say visits are now theoretically allowed in some parts of the Andamans where they used to be entirely forbidden, including North Sentinel. India recently changed some of its rules on visiting isolated regions in the Andamans. Police surveyed the island by air on Tuesday (local time), and a team of police and forest department officials used a coast guard boat to travel there on Wednesday. "He ventured out on his own free will and his local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions," the family said. The family also said it forgave his killers and called for the release of those who assisted him in his quest to reach the island. In an Instagram post, his family said it was mourning him as a "beloved son, brother, uncle and best friend to us."
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