Steve Saint’s dad was speared to death when Steve was five. After Steve’s dad, Nate, was speared, Nate’s sister Rachel went to live with the tribe that killed her brother when Steve was five. Steve went to live with his Aunt when he was 8 or 11, I can’t remember, in the village, among the people who speared his dad to death.

 

Anthropologists say that for five generations, 6 out of 10 deaths in the tribe that speared Nate Saint were homicides. Person for person, pound for pound the most violent culture on Earth, before Nate’s sister Rachel went to live with the people who speared her brother, when Steve was five.

 

Rachel translated God’s markings into the language of the tribe that killed her brother. His markings showed the tribe how they were not walking on God’s trail. He didn’t want them spearing each other. Very quickly, this message spread from village to village. God’s markings, and his trail were welcome directions to the people who killed Rachel Saint’s brother when Steve was five. The Homicide rate dropped by 90% after they learned what God’s markings said. His trail was life for the tribe that murdered Nate Saint when Steve was five.

 

Steve’s sister, Cathy, was baptized by two of the men who killed her father. Rachel Saint is buried in the village of the tribe who killed her brother. Rachel Saint was buried among her people, her tribe. Steve Saint’s children have a grandfather. He is one of the men who killed their biological grandfather, when their dad was five. God’s trail is a giving trail.

 

In 2000, Steve Saint’s only daughter died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He couldn’t talk about it Sunday, without crying. He couldn’t talk about his Dad without getting a bit choked up.

 

God’s markings are true, and his trail does not avoid difficult terrain. It is often in the wounds we receive in our journey on his trail that we notice our bleeding God walking with us, guiding us to our trail’s end.