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Topics: World News, News
Anish Vij
American missionary John Allen Chau travelled to the North Sentinel Island with the intention of converting the people who live there to Christianity.
The small island - about the size of New York's Manhattan Island - is situated in the Indian Ocean and is home to the isolated Sentinelese peoples.
It is estimated that the land could comfortably support between 80 and 150 people, but there could be as few as 15 or as many as 500 currently living there.
The 27-year-old - who paid a fisherman to help him get across to the island in 2018 - grew up in a Christian home in Vancouver, Washington and had a passion for hiking, camping and travelling.
Back in his high school days, Chau learned about the isolated Sentinelese peoples, otherwise known as hunter-gatherers, who fiercely protect their home from outsiders.
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In November of that year, despite being aware of the island's immense dangers, he went there with the intention to 'declare Jesus' to its inhabitants.
On arrival, he wrote that he was 'doing this to establish the kingdom of Jesus on the island... Do not blame the natives if I am killed'.
"You guys might think I'm crazy in all this but I think it's worth it to declare Jesus to these people," he wrote in the letter to his parents.
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"Please do not be angry at them or at God if I get killed.
"Rather please live your lives in obedience to whatever he has called you to and I'll see you again when you pass through the veil. This is not a pointless thing - the eternal lives of this tribe is at hand and I can't wait to see them around the throne of God worshiping in their own language as Revelations 7:9-10 states.
"I love you all and I pray none of you love anything in this world more than Jesus Christ."
Chau also wrote in his diary: "I hollered: ‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you'.
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"I regret I began to panic slightly as I saw them string arrows in their bows. I picked up the fish and threw it towards them. They kept coming.
"I paddled like I never have in my life back to the boat."
Sadly, after making land he was believed to have been hit and killed by arrows.
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A police statement explained: “The fishermen saw a dead person being buried at the shore which from the silhouette of the body, clothing and circumstances appeared to be the body of John Allen Chau."
In a statement, Chau's family said: "We recently learned from an unconfirmed report that John Allen Chau was reported killed in India while reaching out to members of the Sentinelese Tribe in the Andaman Islands.
"He loved God, life, helping those in need and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people.
"We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death. We also ask for the release of those friends he had in the Andaman Islands."