Imagine living in a stone-age culture. That is how the Yanomam'o have been described. Three generations of the same family working with this Venezuelan tribe and now a new film coming out from the tribal leaders themselves to refute the secular anthropologists by showing how walking with Christ has transformed their culture. Mike's growing up years will take you through adventures with animals, nature, and people.
Michael Dawson is a missionary to the Yanomamö Indians in the Amazonas region of Venezuela. Michael was born in the middle of the Amazon jungle at TamaTama, a small mission base hacked out of the rainforest on the banks of the Orinoco river. He is the 5th of 10 children born to Joe and Millie Dawson who were among the first missionaries to the Yanomamo tribe. His first language was Yanomamö and he learned English when he was 7 years old. After graduating high school he worked for two years on the upper Orinoco river system taking portions of the New Testament to remote villages. The Yanomamö language contains many dialects and his purpose was to determine in what regions of the Yanomamo region that the current translation was understandable dialectally. He returned to the US for Bible School training in 1976 and finished missionary training in 79. He then spent a year in flight training.
Michael married Renée Pintor in September, 1980 and they left for Venezuela in January of 1981. They worked disciplining new Yanomamö believers, traveling with them to different villages showing them how to evangelize their own people. They have three boys, Joshua, Ryan and Stephen.
In June of 1992 Renée went to be with the Lord after an attack of cerebral malaria. Michael was also stricken at the same time. They were both evacuated to Caracas, but Renée did not recover. She is buried in the base village of Coshilowäteli. On her headstone are the words "She lives in our hearts as a penetrating reminder that not only is Christ worth living for, He is worth dying for".
Mike continued working with the Yanomamö. In Oct of 1994 he married Keila and they now have two daughters. Mikeila and Mia.In 1998 they began working on an experimental airplane to be used as a part of an integrated outreach plan to reach the entire Yanomamo people. Travel is difficult and, many times dangerous in the jungle. While distances are not that great, it can take days to get from one village to the next. The airplane was put in service in January of 2002 and has been a tremendous blessing to the outreach ministry, allowing contact with remote villages that would never have been reached any other way. In 2006, however, all flight operations in the jungle were haulted due to political pressures. All jungle airstrips remain closed to date.
On the 12th of Janury, 2006, Mikeila Reneé, five year old daughter of Michael and Keila went to be with the Lord. She became ill at about 1:00 AM and went unconscious at 9 AM. She passed away at about 2 PM. Normal radio contact is had with the mission base in town every morning at 6:30, however this morning for some reason, no radio contact could be established. Once again it was brought home to Michael the need to have aircraft based right in our jungle base.
Michael continues working with the Yanomamö in Amazonas Venezuela. He is involved in the outreach ministry and in the Bible school. Along with the rest of the team, he also helps in community development.
