Rayford Steele is an
airline pilot whose relationship with his wife has gone
sour; she responds by devoting more of her time and
energy to the church, while he ponders having an affair
with an attractive flight attendant, Hattie Durham. In
the midst of a flight to London, a number of their
passengers mysteriously disappear, and chaos takes hold
as a number of vehicles on the ground and in the air are
suddenly unmanned. Meanwhile, Buck Williams, a
television journalist, is pondering the rash of sudden
disappearances as he works on a report about Dr. Chaim
Rosenzweig, an Israeli scientist who has devised a
formula that would make any soil on earth easy to
cultivate. However, Buck wonders if there's more to
Rosenzweig than he first imagined when he discovers the
doctor is in cahoots with two multi-millionaires who
plan to broker the invention to promote their own agenda
of international domination.
In 1956, a group of five American missionaries were sent
to Ecuador, where they introduced themselves to the
Aucas, a tribe of indigenous people who lived near the
Eastern Amazon River. The Auca tribe was among the most
violent societies on Earth -- six out of ten deaths
among the tribe were homicide, and they were even more
bloodthirsty with outsiders than they were with their
own. The Americans attempted to convince the Aucas of
their good intentions, but they were soon speared to
death by members of the tribe. However, after word
reached the United States that the missionaries had been
murdered, the wife of one of the fallen men traveled to
Ecuador to continue her husband's work. Within two
years, a profound change came over the Aucas -- their
murder rate fell by 90 percent, and in time, the newly
peaceful tribe renamed themselves the Waodani. Beyond
the Gates of Splendor is a documentary which recounts
this extraordinary true story as Steve Saint, the son of
one of the murdered missionaries, travels to Ecuador to
visit with the Waodani tribe.
