WELCOME to the Revival page of the Ukika Indian Church ~in Tierra Del Fuego, a few miles from Cape Horn, Chile

THE CAPE HORN MISSIONARY CHURCH

Missionary Adventures in the "uttermost part of the earth"

The flame of the Holy Spirit is prophesied to start in
Tierra Del Fuego at the "ends of the earth" and spread
North to who knows where; through Argentina, Chile, Central,
South and North America, Canada...
See Ezekiel 20:45-49, Acts 1.8, John 12:24-25

We hope to be a part of this spiritual awakening
with our Church.
We need your prayers to build a new church,
bring helpers to Tierra Del Fuego and for the
Holy Spirit's guidance.
Please pray about being a part of
this ministry which is preaching God's word at
"The Uttermost part of the earth".

Following is a message that Pastor Patricio Ibarra wrote last July, 2002 on his way to a meeting of thousands of believers where the Holy Spirit was manifested in Ushuaia:
Today we begin our trip to the same "ends of the earth" where Darwin landed, and also Allen Gardiner, Magellan and Bridges.
Ushuaia, Argentina is the most southern city in the world, closer to Antarctica than Punta Arenas, Chile, very near Cape Horn, in the strait of the Beagle Channel, very near the place where the Operation Mobilization missionary ship, Logos, sank near Puerto Williams

Many Christian martyrs have changed this land; Allan Gardiner, and its six companions were the first.
After their death the group of eight men from England which came to replace them suffered the same destiny, they died, not of hunger nor cold, but by hand of the Indians, ignorant of the gospel, which they had come to save.
Darwin, giving a surprise to all, was a faithful financial backer of the work of Gardiner, and the end of his life returned to the Bible, regretting loudly the evil use his theories.
Subsequently, many sowed their lives dying naturally here in the name of our Savior. Literally they walked here and there, poor, distressed, mistreated. The fruit of perseverance of these helped to found the city of Ushuaia, as result of the settlement of the English missionaries that needed a geographic place where they could be established.

At the moment there is a presentation in the Argentine Congress so that the name of this city be changed to "City of God". We pray that it will be a reality. This it is the place where God has called us, the southern region of the Patagonia at the ends of the earth.
This weekend we join brothers to raise our arms to heaven, to clamor to God in unity for a new spilling of the Holy Spirit, which has been announced many times by different media. That the dreams of many generations begin to be given reality!, and that we can administer wisely the gifts that God distributes to us in this assembly of the Holy Spirit.
Today, thirty or so of pastors and leaders, are traveling from different Patagonian cities. We, from Punta Arenas are going to travel through 350 miles of ice, snow, and a little bit of cement road in order to arrive at Ushuaia. Pray that we can receive the "fire" as a strong wind, and that we can continue carrying it with us as a blessing for the salvation of thousands.

In Christ Jesus, Patricio and Tani Ibarra
Punta Arenas, Chile

Here is a short story about Allen Gardiner:

On December 17, 1850, Captain Allen Gardiner and six companions, after enduring a long trip from England, landed at Patagonia on the southern tip of South America. They came to bring the Gospel to people there who were so primitive that evolutionist Charles Darwin said they existed "in a lower state than in any other part of the world." The natives were fierce cannibals and the land and weather absolutely treacherous. The team had brought six month's worth of supplies. England had committed to sending a relief ship with more supplies in six months.
(A classic example of a miracle of God is related -- strange to say -- to Charles Darwin):
On his 1831 voyage around the world on the Beagle, the well-known naturalist observed the aborigines of Tierra del Fuego, situated off the southern tip of South America. This tribal people Darwin dubbed as "the missing link" between man and monkey and declared them incapable or moral discernment.
Later a converted British naval officer, Captain Allen Gardiner , worked as a missionary among these aborigines. Such was the change in these darkened souls that Darwin himself was astonished and, in appreciation of Gardiner's work, sent a donation to the South American Missionary Society and asked to be made an honorary member!

Whether we think of the Aucas or the Sawis or the Hmars, the evidence is overwhelming: When the story of God's love is preached and the message of the Cross is proclaimed, the hearts of men the world around are broken and their eyes opened to see the reality of these spiritual truths.

References:
Alice Gibbons, The People that Time Forgot (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981), p. 346
Robert Hall Glover, revised and enlarged by Herbert Kane. The Progress of World-Wide Missions (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 360-361.)

After leaving England, Gardiner wrote in his journal, "Nothing can exceed the cheerful endurance and unanimity of the whole party . . . I feel that the Lord is with us, and cannot doubt that He will own and bless the work He permitted us to begin."

Unfortunately, things began to go wrong. Unbeknown to Gardiner, his supporters back in England couldn't find a ship to carry the next six months' supplies to Patagonia. No one wanted to make such a dangerous journey. So as the missionaries carried out their work on the cold tip of South America and as their supplies ran dangerously low, they scanned the horizon for the approaching ship. It never arrived.
Those men faced a tough test. Alone in a hostile environment, without food or supplies, hunger and death stalked them like hungry wolves.
By the time a relief ship finally reached Patagonia in October 1851, almost a year after the missionaries had arrived, Gardiner and his men had all died of starvation. Gardiner's emaciated body was found lying beside a boat. He was clothed in three suits, with wool stockings over his arms to ward off the numbing cold. The supply arrangements for the under-funded party failed, leading to the death of the entire expedition from scurvy and starvation in Spaniard Harbor (now Aguirre Bay), Tierra del Fuego.

What had that English missionary thought during those last horrifying days? Had this terrible ordeal destroyed his faith? Were his dying days filled with nothing but despair and disillusionment? The men off the relief ship found his journal. They were amazed at one of his latter entries:
"Poor and weak as we are, our boat is the very Bethel [house of God] to our soul, for we feel and know that God is here. Asleep or awake, I am, beyond the power of expression, happy."

The death of the missionary party had the belated effect of arousing public sympathy back in the UK, and the PMS was revitalized. Gardiner's original plan for the Society was threefold: to supply the spiritual wants of his own countrymen, of Roman Catholics, and of the unreached in South America. With these aims in mind, the Secretary of the PMS, the Reverend George Despard, determined to persevere with the work initiated by Gardiner. In 1854, one of the Falklands, Keppel Island, was established by Despard as the Mission's headquarters, from where, by boat, missionaries communicated with the Fuegians. Over the next five years, contact was maintained, with the Fuegians receiving visits, food and clothes, and Bible and agricultural instruction, and the missionaries learning the Yahgan language. Unfortunately, an attempt in 1859 to establish a permanent mission station on the mainland led in the massacre of eight missionaries. In 1863 the Reverend Waite Stirling joined the team on Keppel Island, and subsequent attempts at establishing stations, at Liwya and Ushuaia, were more successful. By the 1870s many of the local Fuegians had converted to Christianity; however, the native population dwindled to such an extent over the next couple of decades that the Fuegian mission was closed down in the opening years of the 20th century.

Ritchie, John. STORY OF CAPTAIN ALLEN GARDINER, MISSIONARY
MARTYR OF DARK PATAGONIA. Kilmarnock: John Ritchie, 190-'s?. 1st ed.
Size: 5x7. [33p, several b&w illust] (A short account of the mission work of Captain Allan Gardiner, who along with a small crew, died at Tiera del Fuego near Cape Horn at the tip of South America in 1851 while waiting for provisions.)

Besides Allen Gardiner and others, the missionary ship MV LOGOS I, which sunk on the Islote Snipe on 6 January, 1988 was a kernel of wheat which fell to the ground and died in order to produce many seeds here at the "ends of the earth"

Click on MV LOGOS to see her
ship wrecked near Puerto Williams

From the OM site at http://www.mvlogos2.org/index.asp?main=about_us/history.xml&0dm=137 :

MV LOGOS, Operation Mobilization's pioneering first ship, was purchased in 1970. Over a 17-year period, more than seven million visitors came to the MV LOGOS during 250 ports of call in 102 countries. In 1988, MV LOGOS ran aground on rocks off Tierra del Fuego, Chile, in atrocious weather conditions. Though the ship could not be saved, not a single crewmember was lost. Later that year, the former ANTONIO LAZARO became the LOGOS II.

Our Father's Children

Click on the above cartoon to visit Our Fathers Children.com

Old photo, author unknown

n December 27, 1831, H.M.S. BEAGLE,
a 240 ton, ten-gun brig left Plymouth, England,
on a survey voyage to chart the coastline of
South America.
The Beagle was a rather small, ninety feet
in length. She was being completely refitted
and rebuilt after her last voyage.
On the upcoming trip she would be home to
74 people including the captain, three officers,
the crew, a doctor, an artist, and of course the naturalist.

Darwin shared the poop cabin (at the back of
the ship) with two officers. Their space was
so cramped that Darwin had to remove a drawer
each night so that he would have room for his
feet. It was a journey that would
last almost five years, and would carry the
ship around the world. It was also a voyage
that would change the history of human
thought. The BEAGLE was under the command
again of Captain Robert Fitzroy, and carried
seventy-four people, including its unpaid
naturalist, Charles Darwin, recently
graduated from Cambridge.

aptain Robert FitzRoy was young to be a
captain, yet seasoned and very able. When he
was only 23, he had assumed the command of
the Beagle on a previous voyage. FitzRoy was
devoutly religious, and he planned some
missionary activities for this voyage.

It was actually Captain Robert Fitzroy who had
the first vision for starting an evangelistic mission
for the Yagan Indians of Tierra Del Fuego.

In 1832 the "HMS Beagle", at the command of
Captain Fitzroy, came back to Wulaia in
Navarino Island, from England and returned
three "Fuegian" Yagan Indians that the BEAGLE

had taken to England on a previous voyage.

Aboard the BEAGLE with a young naturalist,
Charles Darwin.

itzroy wanted one of the Yagans, Jemmy

Button, to be an interpreter to the others.
Navarino island is at the tip of the South
American continent. Captain Fitzroy wanted to
set up his mission here, so Darwin was able
to spend considerable time ashore and
discovered things which would intrigue him.

Wulaia is where the founding of Tierra Del
Fuego, Ushuaia and Puerto Williams really
began with the first missionary house.

When he returned to England, Darwin wrote of
the Fuegians:

"The perfect equality among the
individuals composing the Fuegian tribes must
for a long time retard their civilization.
...In Tierra Del Fuego, until some chief
shall arise with power sufficient to secure
any acquired advantage, such as the
domesticated animals, it seems scarcely
possible that the political state of the
country can be improved.

At present, even a piece of cloth given to one is torn into
shreds and distributed; and no one individual
becomes richer than another. On the other
hand, it is difficult to understand how a
chief can arise till there is property of
some sort by which he might manifest his
superiority and increase his power."

Following is what Darwin wrote about
the Indians he found in Wulaia:

...painted devils... ...a measure of happiness...

Dec 17, 1832 - "It was without exception the
most curious and interesting spectacle I ever
beheld: I could not have believed how wide
was the difference between savage and
civilized man: it is greater than between a
wild and domesticated animal, inasmuch as in
man there is a greater power of improvement."

"Their only garment consists of a mantle
thrown over their shoulders, leaving their
persons as often exposed as covered. [They
were painted like] devils which come on stage
in plays. They are excellent mimics ...they
could repeat with perfect correctness each
word in any sentence we addressed them... Yet
we Europeans all know how difficult it is to
distinguish apart the sounds in a foreign
language. Is it a consequence of the more
practised habits of perception and keener
senses, common to all men in a savage state?"

"

uring the former voyage, [1826-30]
Captain Fitz Roy seized on a party of natives as
hostages for the loss of a boat which had
been stolen ...; some of these natives, as
well as a child whom he bought for a
pearl-button, he took with him to England
...to educate and instruct them in religion
at his own expense. To settle these natives
in their own country, was one chief
inducement to Captain Fitz Roy to undertake
our present voyage."

"Although all three could both speak and
understand a good deal of English, it was
singularly difficult to obtain much
information from them ... partly owing to
their apparent difficulty in understanding
the simplest alternative. It is certainly
true that when pressed in winter by hunger,
they kill and devour their own women before
they kill their dogs: 'Doggies catch otters,
old women, no'." Not so. Fuegians were not
cannibals. (Bridges suggests, in The
Uttermost Part of the Earth, that reports of
Fuegian cannibalism were "no more than
agreement with suggestions made by their
questioners." )

"They sometimes bury their dead... Jeremy
Button would not eat land-birds because '
[they] eat dead men': they are unwilling to
mention their dead friends. [It is unclear
if] they perform any sort of religious
worship. Each family or tribe has a wizard or
conjuring doctor. Jeremy believed in dreams,
though not in the devil: I do not think that
our Feugians were much more superstitious
than some of the sailors."

"Whence have they come ...to one of the most
inhospitable countries within the limits of
the globe? There is no reason to believe that
the Fuegians decrease in number; therefore we
must suppose that they enjoy a sufficient
share of happiness, of whatever kind it may
be, to render life worth having. Nature, by
making habit omnipotent, and its effects
hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the
climate and the productions of his miserable
country."

Missionary work in Wulaia started after
Captain Fitzroy brought Jimmy Button back
from his 1830 voyage t to live here again
among the Yagan Indians in Wulaia and to help
Rev. Richard Mathews. Charles Darwin in in
his last days possibly became a Christian is
supposed to have renounced evolution and
converted to Christianity on his deathbed.
Shortly after his death, a Lady Hope claimed
she visited Darwin on his deathbed, and
witnessed his conversion. But, Lady Hope's
story was refuted by Darwin's daughter
Henrietta who stated, "I was present at his
deathbed ......But some say It is debatable if he later became a Christian.

HARLES DARWIN'S thinking and writing
on the subject of evolution and natural selection
caused him to reject the evidence for God in
nature and ultimately to renounce the Bible,
God, and the Christian faith.

Darwin did not lack religious influences in
his youth. Baptized an Anglican and steeped
in his mother's Unitarianism, young Charles
was brought up to pray. He used to run the
mile or so from home to school, concerning
which he wrote:

'I often had to run very quickly to be on
time, and from being a fleet runner was
generally successful; but when in doubt I
prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I
well remember that I attributed my success to
the prayers and not to my quick running, and
marvelled how generally I was aided.'

e had dropped out of medical studies after
two years at Edinburgh, and his father
suggested to him the calling of an Anglican
clergyman. Charles wasn't sure whether he
could accept everything in the Thirty-nine
Articles of the Church of England. However,
he later wrote,

I liked the thought of being a country
clergyman. Accordingly I read with care
Pearson on the Creed and a few other books on
divinity; and as I did not then in the least
doubt the strict and literal truth of every
word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself
that our Creed must be fully accepted.'

uring his three years of theological studies
at Christ's College, Cambridge, he was
greatly impressed by Paley's Evidences of
Christianity and his Natural Theology (which
argues for the existence of God from design).
He recalled:

'I could have written out the whole of the
Evidences with perfect correctness, but not
of course in the clear language of Paley,'
and, 'I do not think I hardly ever admired a
book more than Paley's Natural Theology. I
could almost formerly have said it by heart.'

In a letter of condolence to a bereaved
friend at that time, he wrote of "so pure and
holy a comfort as the Bible affords,'
compared with 'how useless the sympathy of
all friends must appear.'

More on Darwin

Here, on Navarino island at the tip of the South
American continent, Captain Fitzroy wanted to set up a mission.
Darwin was therefore able to spend considerable time ashore
and discovered things which would intrigue him.