When Wycliffe Bible translator Doug Meland and his wife moved into a village of Brazil’s Fulnio Indians, the Indians referred to him simply as “the white man.” That reference was not complimentary since other “white men” had exploited them, burned their homes, and robbed them of their lands.
But after the Melands learned the Fulnio language and began to help the people with medicine and in other ways, they began calling Doug “the respectable white man.” When the Melands began adapting to some of the customs of the people that did not compromise their faith, the Fulnio gave them greater acceptance and spoke of Doug as “the white Indian.”
Then one day, as Doug was washing the dirty, blood-caked foot of an injured Fulnio boy, he overheard one of the Indians watching what was happening say, “Whoever heard of a white man washing an Indian’s foot before? Certainly this man is from God” From that day one, whenever
Doug would go into an Indian home, it would be announced, “Here come the man God sent us.”