Bethel’s Adopted Peo­ple Group from the Yanomamo Tribe

MISHAWAKA–– In the 1990s, Bethel be­came the first col­lege in the coun­try to adopt a peo­ple group. The peo­ple group cho­sen were the Yanomamo peo­ple, a tribe known for vi­o­lence, re­venge killings and cul­ture and killing their own peo­ple. They are lo­cated on the bor­der of Venezuela and Brazil, and a part of the tribe is here on Bethel’s cam­pus, through ar­ti­facts that sit in the Shiloh prayer chapel. 

Un­der the lead­er­ship of the vice pres­i­dent in the 1990s, Bethel de­cided to adopt a peo­ple group to pray for, sup­port, send task force groups to and have good con­nec­tions with, and a group met to dis­cuss which peo­ple group should be adopted. In this group was Chris­t­ian Davis, Ph.D., pro­fes­sor of lit­er­a­ture and lan­guage stud­ies, who is now serv­ing his twenty-ninth year here at Bethel. Af­ter about eight weeks of prayer and con­sid­er­a­tion, the small group of fac­ulty, staff and stu­dents chose a tribe. 

“We came to­gether and chose the Yanomamo peo­ple unan­i­mously, even though no one had been push­ing for them,” Davis said.

Every­one in the group had dis­cussed many dif­fer­ent sug­ges­tions of which peo­ple group Bethel should adopt, but in the end the group de­cided on one that had not pre­vi­ously been men­tioned. 

“It had to be the Holy Spirit, we just agreed that should be it,” Davis said. 

Sev­eral task force trips were sent down to the Yanomamo tribe, led by Je­remy and Mindy Tice, who were the mis­sion­ar­ies work­ing with the tribe and have con­nec­tions with Bethel as well. Bethel con­tin­ued to send fi­nan­cial sup­port and teams reg­u­larly. 

Mis­sion­ary broth­ers Gary and Michael Daw­son, with their wives, Marie and Keila, came and spoke in chapel and brought with them a for­mer witch doc­tor who had been con­verted to Chris­tian­ity. The witch doc­tor spoke through an in­ter­preter in chapel. The Daw­son broth­ers grew up in Venezuela and there­fore have cit­i­zen­ship there. The Pres­i­dent of Venezuela or­dered out all mis­sion­ar­ies, but since the Daw­son’s have cit­i­zen­ship, they were able to stay, and are the only con­nec­tion Bethel still has with the Yanomamo peo­ple. 

It has been many years since Bethel has done any­thing in con­nec­tion with the Yanomamo peo­ple. The last time any ac­tiv­ity hap­pened was in the early 2000s when a Yanomamo shaman spoke in one of Davis’s classes.

“I re­ally wish Bethel would con­nect with them, but I don’t know if we can send teams there yet,” Davis said. 

Stu­dents who are cu­ri­ous to learn more can visit the ar­ti­facts in Shiloh, can check out a hand­ful of books about the Yanomamo from the Bethel li­brary or can go on­line to pur­chase one of Michael Daw­son’s books, “Grow­ing up Yanomamo,” pub­lished in 2009, or his se­quel, “Grow­ing Up Yanomamo To­day: By Faith Not By Sight,” which was just pub­lished in 2021.