MTM - Interview with Gary Dawson

A military general tells Gary Dawson he has to leave the Amazon and then a little girl runs up, wraps her arms around his leg, and changes the whole tone of the confrontation. That moment captures the heart of this conversation with Dr. Robert Jackson: what it looks like to follow a calling when the pressure is real, the stakes are high, and the outcome is out of your hands. Gary, author of Gringo Mama, shares why his family stayed in Venezuela after missionaries were expelled, and how decades of life among the Yanomama people shaped his faith, language, and sense of purpose. 

We also go where most mission stories don’t. Gary explains the Yanomama view of the spirit world and the role of shamans, describing fear, deception, and the dark promise of “power” that often ends in destruction. He recounts a tense journey into an enemy village, a night of warnings, and a chilling encounter where a shaman claims he heard them coming and identifies God as the “enemy God.” The description of a place with no darkness, no death, and a crystal river brings the Bible to mind and raises hard questions about spiritual warfare, discernment, and what evil looks like across cultures and at home. 

At the center, we come back to the gospel. Gary reflects on assurance of salvation, the truth that Jesus saves us when we can’t save ourselves, and the deeper comfort that Christ also keeps us. We close with practical needs and prayer: help printing more copies of the book, support for medical debt from caring for the Yanomama, and urgent prayer for two year old Rihanna, diagnosed with aggressive leukemia. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these stories and the hope behind them.

Christian Light Ministries

PO Box 23881

Jacksonville Florida

32241

Make check payable to Christian Light Ministries...

In memo put for Gary and Maria Dawson

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Gary Dawson

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the doctor. To More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician Dr. Robert Jackson and his wife Carl Otto and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up because the doctor will end.

SPEAKER_03 0:23

Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, I'm privileged today to have as my guest Gary Dawson, who's the author of a book that we're going to tell you about in just a moment. And the author of a very, very interesting life that I want him to tell you about. So, Gary Dawson, welcome to More Than Medicine.

Why The Dawsons Stayed In Venezuela

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Thank you, sir. That's a privilege.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Well, Gary, I just read a very interesting book that you happen to be the author of entitled Gringo Mamo. And on the pr on the front cover, it has a picture of a uh a Caucasian-looking guy with uh blue eyes and blonde-looking hair. But the other other half of his face is a dark-skinned guy with black hair and brown eyes, dark skin. And uh and I just tell me what's that all about?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Well, uh, sir, that is actually my photo. Uh that's the whole the whole face is mine, but uh my wife took it and doctored it up for the title of Gringo Mama. And what it's about is um back in 2005, the then president of Venezuela uh expelled all the missionaries from the Amazon. Uh so New Tribes Mission, some of the Baptist mission, MAF, some of the big mission, well, not some of them, all of them left Venezuela. And as a family, we prayed about it, and we really believed that that God had opened the door to the Yanama people and that a man couldn't shut it. So we stayed, trusting God. And it's 2026, and by the grace of God, our family are still in the in the jungles. But during that time, the military, around 2006, the military began to come in and and uh I interrogate us, ask us why we were still there, that kind of stuff. And one of the generals that seemed to be very antagonistic one day, he said he needed to talk to me by himself. And so I went, I walked out and then went off a little bit away from everybody else. And he said, You have to leave. You can no longer be here, be here. And I said to him, uh, General, with all due respect, uh the person that I serve outranks you, and I pointed to heaven, meaning God, and I said, God has told us to stay. And he's standing there glaring at me, not really knowing how to answer that. When my granddaughter, who is half Yanomama, my oldest son, married uh a Yanomama girl. And uh my oldest granddaughter, her name is Tanya, she came running up and grabbed me around the leg and said, Grandpa. And when she said grandpa to her to me, the the general looked down at her and said, in Spanish, are you a gringa? And she answered him in Spanish, no, I'm a gringa mama, combining the word with gringo with the Yana mama, the Yana mama. And he he laughed and he said, What did she say? So she repeated it. And he said, What does she mean by that? So I told him, I said, Well, my son is her father, and her mother is a Yana mama girl from the village here. And uh God used that to just change the heart of that man. I mean, from then on, every time he came in, he was very friendly. And when the harassment just star stopped, and we're like I said, we're still there by the grace of God.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

How about that? Now, how did how did your parents come to be there where you lived?

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Well, uh, my mom and dad uh went to went to Venezuela in 1953. Uh started work with the Yanamama in 1953. I was only two years old, and my older brother, who passed away a couple years ago, uh, and my sister Faith were the all were their three children when they went there. And in Venezuela, in the Amazon jungle, they had seven more. So our family has been in Venezuela as a family since the the early 1950s. My mom and dad both are with Jesus now. They they passed away, they're buried in the Amazon. My dad was 91 when he passed away, and my mom was 90.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

So they're they're buried in a Yanamamu village there where we've worked most of our life. And they were able to translate the New Testament and a lot of portions of the Old Testament into the Yanamamu language. So we've been a family, you know. My parents really believed in it was a family dedicated to God. And so we learned to to share the gospel at a very, very early age with our friends, and and uh and we're we're still there. So praise God for that.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

So you you pretty much grew up speaking the the language of the Yanamama.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Yes, sir. I would say that um if you say you have to have a native tongue, well, uh English should be my native tongue, but I think Yanamama is, and my wife would agree with that.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Well, I I'm sure my listeners would be very interested in some of the stories of your youth and growing up in that uh environment in the jungle. Why don't you indulge me and them and just share some of those stories?

Demon Signs In Modern America

SPEAKER_02 5:55

One of the biggest stories I have is is we we deal with a lot of a lot of shamans. I I think in the old days they called them witch doctors, and I think now today you're supposed to say shaman, but that's what they are. They're there are the ones in the in the jungle that appease the demonic world. The Yanamamu see uh uh see us as a not just uh a physical being, but as a spiritual being. And they believe that anything bad happening is happening in this in the uh spirit world, if they can enter the spirit world and correct whatever's bad in the spirit world, then the physical, the physical body will get well. And it's uh they they are so in bondage to Satan and his demons that uh it's it's almost Satan has always been from the very beginning of time the the master deceiver. Um he takes the truth of the word of God and he always twists it into a lie. Uh he his his appeal to the younger generation to become a shaman is this he's promised this young guy who's who's entering into the world of the demon of the demons the power to heal the children of his village. And if there's one thing that that the Yanomamas suffer very much is they see a lot of death with their children. Uh from birth to two years of age, uh child is pretty healthy, but from there on, not many of them make it. Uh the mortality rate is really, really high, especially where there's no medical help at all. But this child or this young man is told that he's going to become the healer of the children and that the women will no longer be crying in his village because he's going to receive power to heal the children. And at his final stage of life, when he's at the epitome of power in the demonic world, his name is not healer. His name is destroyer of the children. And it's because he claims to have power in the spirit world to go to enemy villages and chill kill their children by destroying their spirits. And we'll even come home and say, I killed so-and-so many children in that village over there. And in a couple of days, word will come that there was an epidemic of something and a lot of kids died. And so the demonic world is just something that is, you know, I and the sad part about it is I see those same spirits, those same demons in our country today.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

Wow. Now, how do you how do you see those same demon spirits manifested in America?

Journey Into An Enemy Village

The Shaman Hears A Night Call

The Enemy God And Heaven Described

SPEAKER_02 8:41

The uh the drug culture, the the porner world, all of that is demonic. Yeah. Our confusion about sex, our confusion about uh male and female, our confusion about homosexuality, lesbianism, any of that. That is the Yanomamu themselves will name it as demonic power. Yeah. And uh they even have names for the demons that are guilty of those kind of things. Uh just like let me give you an example of another story. When I was in my teen years, I went with one of our first Yanomamu believers to a village that was an enemy village. We had to go three days by river, and then the hike to their village was three days by land. So we we we picked up guides to go with us. Now, these guides were enemies of this village too, and they said, Well, we're only gonna take you, take you to the main trail, and when we get there, we're leaving you and we're we're gonna go back home because these people are really, really dangerous. And so we got the first day we're headed out there, they're talking about how brave they are, how strong they are, that they don't fear anybody. And uh, they were gonna walk right into the village with me, into this enemy village. The second day, everybody's quiet. They aren't talking very much at all. And when we got to the place where we made camp for the night, they said, This is the main trail to the village, uh, but it's still a whole day's way from here. But uh we're not gonna go any farther. And then they began to talk about the the witch doctor or the shaman from that village, and they said he already know, or they kept saying amongst themselves, he already knows we're here. He already knows we're here. And finally, I asked them, I said, Who knows we're here? And they said they named the guy, and they said, We shot it, that was his name. They said he already knows we're here. And I said to him, How does he know we're here? And they said, Well, he's out there probably listening to us right now in the form of some animal or some bird, and he's gonna go home and tell tell the people that that we're coming. And uh, much to my surprise, my Christian friend Octavio, he stood up and he yells out into the jungle. This is at night, he yells out into the jungle, he says, Uncle, it's me. I'm Makoma's son, naming his mother. And you're my uncle. I really want to see you. I really want to get to know my mother's people. And I'm laying in my hammock and I'm thinking, yeah, that really helped us. But uh the next day when we woke up, they were gone. Our guides were gone, just the two of us. So we took off and about five o'clock that afternoon, we came close to the village. We could hear that there was a commotion going on in the village. I recognized the chance of the shamans, and it sounded like they were working on a sick person, not a good time to go visit. But when we walked around the palisade and into the village, all these this demonic activity just stopped. It was like somebody turned off a switch. And then all of a sudden, the blood curdling screams of the warriors, they grabbed up their bows and arrows and their axes and machetes, and they they come storming toward us and they surround us, yelling and screaming and wanting to know where we're from. And you know, I'm the first white person they've ever seen. So that was that was the phenomenon for him, too. But but just at the peak of all of that, this old man starts walking through the crowd and he's telling everybody, Mammy Kai, mammy kai, mommy guy, which means be quiet, be quiet, be quiet. And he walks right up to Octavio, who's standing next to me. He looks him right in the eye and he says, Nephew, I heard you last night. Is my sister still alive? And the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I mean, that was my first real personal encounter with a shaman. So the next morning I walk over and I said to I walk over to his hearth and he saw me coming. He wasn't unfriendly, but he turned his back to me. And when I would talk to him, he would answer me, but with his back toward me. We got to talking about the Yan Mama people, about the culture. Uh, these guys are like the encyclopedias of the people, and so I'm I'm just asking every question I could think of. And somehow we got on the spiritual topic of the demonic world and Satan. And I said the word Dios in Spanish, and he got excited, and he stood up. Now he had never ever in his life heard the word Dios, but he knew who I was talking about. He stood up and he points up to heaven and he says, He is Yaiwano Nabumonima, which means he is the enemy God.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

Oh, wow.

Sealed By The Spirit And Kept Saved

SPEAKER_02 13:23

Then he said to me, He said, Where he lives, there's no darkness. Where he lives, there's no death. Where he lives, there's no hunger. Where he lives, there's no sickness. There are fruit trees that bear all year long. There's never a season without fruit. And where he sits, from from where he sits, there's a river that flows, and it's called the Wararai. Wararai translated into English is crystal. He is describing revelations, Isaiah, all of these things. He's describing it in detail. And he said to me, but he's selfish. We aren't allowed to go there. And in the Yanamama culture, there's only one sin that can send you to hell. One sin, and that's to be selfish. So Satan, and I said to him, I said, Uncle, how do you know that? And he pointed to his chest and he said, My children, speaking of his demons, showed me his place from a long ways off. They used to live there, but they're no longer welcome there. And uh he told me, he said, if you could just drink of that river, you would never die. It's the river of life. And then he said, uh, he said to me, he turned and he looks me right in the eyes and he said, And you have his spirit in you. And I said to him, Uncle, how do you know that? I'm a teenager. I, you know, I was back in those days, I was getting saved every day because I was sure the day before I'd already lost my salvation again. And I said to him, Uncle, how do you know that? And he said, Well, when you came into our village yesterday, the demons left. They're sitting outside where they've been all night long, wanting to know when you're gonna leave so they can come back. And then he said to me, There's a light in you that terrifies me. And uh I realized that day. I remember we stayed there for three days. We treated that that sick lady, she got better, she had malaria, and we treated her with chloroquine and she got better. But I remember walking back to our boat, that three-day hike back to the boat, where I just, you know, I I broke down before God and I I just I understood for the first time in my life that I was sealed by the Spirit of God.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

And God was not leaving me. It didn't matter what Gary Dawson did, God was staying there with me. And I I've come to the as I've gotten older and studied the word more, I realized that I didn't do anything for my salvation. Jesus did it all.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Everything. I mean, I did not save myself, I couldn't have saved myself. I was lost and undone. Jesus saved me. But not only that, he is the one that keeps me saved. He is the one that keeps me. And I can't, I can't even do that. And so it was a humbling experience for me as I walked back to the boat, just confessing, you know, Lord, I haven't been living for you as I should, but God, I want my the rest of my life to be poured out for you. And and you know, I I'm not I'm not a perfect person. I realize today, even today, that man, if it wasn't for his grace, if it wasn't for his mercy, I wouldn't make it. I don't deserve it. But he calls me his son because of Jesus. That's right. Isn't that a great thought?

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Yes, yes, it's an amazing thought.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

It really is. It's just we don't deserve it if he calls us his children, his sons and his daughters. I I get blown away by that. Every time I think about it, it just it just blows me away. I didn't do anything to deserve it. Yes, yes, other than saying, Jesus, I need you. That's right. I need your I need you, I need you to save me because I'm lost without you. That's right. And you know, he says, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I I claimed those verses years and years ago, and I'm still claiming them today.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Oh man. You know, you you uh you've got me in tears, Gary. I just thinking about basic things that we talk about all the time. Being a child of God, being a friend of God.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Amen. And and the amazing thing is is that the demons, you know, they knew who Jesus was.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Yeah, they did.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

And we should we should be so close to Jesus, Chief Shufoot, a shaman that got saved and served the Lord for many, many years with my parents. Yeah, he would always say, I want to stay so close to Jesus that the devil can never touch me again.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

And um that was Shoefoot Baltista. That was Shoefoot, yeah. I write about him in the book.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Yeah. Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

That story that I just told is in the book too, maybe in a little better detail.

Printing The Book And Medical Debt

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Uh-huh. But now, how much longer before you're going to produce more copies of that book?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

I have to I have to get a get some copies made. Uh, I published it myself because I I guess I just didn't want to give up to rights like everybody else does.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

But I published it myself with a company out in California and it it's pretty cheap. But to do, I was planning on doing 500 more because it seems like I do 500 and within a a couple weeks are gone. But it it's it costs about 22 to$2,300 to get that many copies. And so right now, I'm in the US right now because I I um I tried to take care of too many sick Yanomama, but the government wasn't doing anything after new tribes left. There was this big hole created and Yanomama people were dying, and I stepped in and I just I overextended myself and went into debt, and I'm here now to pay off this debt so I can get back to Venezuela.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

I hear you.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

And uh it's it's substantial, but you know, I I know that God knows all about it too, and and uh maybe at this time in my life he wants me here to share what what he's doing. Uh I haven't gotten peace about retiring yet. I'm 74, but I still feel God wants me in the jungles and yeah, and uh as long as I'm in good health, I'm gonna stay there.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Well, I bet some of my w listeners might be willing to help you out. Well, what would it take? You said$2,300?

SPEAKER_02 19:31

No,$2,300, I think, is what we did the last ones for. I don't know if it's gone up. Uh I have maybe three copies left, something like that, but I I just don't have very many books at all.

How To Give Through Christian Light

SPEAKER_03 19:42

All right. Well, let me ask you a question now. If some of my listeners wanted to help you publish your book and maybe help you with some of the indebtedness for go so you can go back to Venezuela. What how and where would they make a contribution to your ministry?

SPEAKER_02 19:57

Uh we have two places. I would probably choose the one in Florida. It's called Christian Light Ministries.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Um I I could probably uh after after we hang up, I could probably text you the address.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

I need to look for it first. I'm not very good at memorying stuff like that off my head, but it's Christian Light Ministries in Jacksonville, Florida.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Um they they are they are a sending agent, I mean uh uh uh clearinghouse for for missionaries for funds to go through and send their their donors tax deductible receipts and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Well if you text it to me, I'll attach it to the to this podcast and my listeners can find it.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yeah, you would want to make it out, you would want to make it out to Christian Light Ministries, and then the memo put for the ministry of Gary and Marie Dawson. Uh you have to put our name in there because there's there's other Dawsons down there too. So I think it probably her name, her legal name is Maria, so it's right should but it should be Maria, Gary and Maria Dawson.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

Gotcha. Spelled M-A-R-I-A.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah. She's uh she's from Mexican descent but was born in Wisconsin. Okay. So I gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

And you kept her down in Venezuela for most of her life.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Took her down there when she was 17 years old, and we've been there now for almost 53 years.

Prayer Requests And Humble Lessons

SPEAKER_03 21:20

God bless you, Gary. God bless the both of you. Well, now any specific prayer request that you would like my listeners to to pray over the both of you.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Well, the one that I mentioned about the debt getting that paid off, and then we just got word a week ago that one of my great-granddaughters in Venezuela, believe it or not, I have great grate grandchildren already. But uh she uh she's two years old and was just diagnosed with leukemia. Oh no and a very a very aggressive kind. She's been in in the state of Apuri in Venezuela getting some chemotherapy and stuff, but they're saying that she's gonna need a bone graft. I mean, yeah, but not. A bone uh bone marrow transplant, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

And what's her name?

SPEAKER_02 22:03

So her name is Rihanna.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Rihanna.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Rihanna Dawson.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Okay. We'll ask our listeners to pray for Rihanna. And uh bless her little heart. That's that's a hard one, brother.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Her her mother, I don't think, is saved, and and uh she uh left my grandson. She couldn't hack the jungle, but uh anyway, she's back. But the the baby, you know, like I I said to my grandson, the baby's not guilty of anything. And so we we really reached out, we've we've uh got her in the in the hospital. They're they're doing treatments. And it's hard because like I said, I'm already swallowed up by a big debt, but yeah, it's all it's all medical for the Yanemama. And I I I just don't feel bad about doing it. Yeah, I probably would do some things differently, yeah, but uh I think it was money that was well spent. The Venezuelan government for the last 20-some years have just literally turned their back on the needs of the the jungle people.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

And since more than 60 families were expelled, uh it all fell on the shoulders of the Dawsons. So that's something you know, it's it's been a it's been a big hard thing. Um I was just to give you an idea, one day I was um sitting there reading my Bible and I began patting myself on the back about us being so, you know, we must have been the best of all the missionaries because God God left us there. And I'm reading in First Corinthians, I came to those last verses, and it says, God didn't choose the noble, he didn't choose the wise, he didn't choose the the good things, and you know, I mean, and it just goes on and on about what he didn't choose, and then it says, but God chose the foolish things of this world, that's right, and it goes on to say, and the base things of this world to bring to naught the things that are, and I stopped and I looked up and I said, God, I got the point. I got the point. We're we're we're not the best, you know. You are the best. That's right. And the job can only be accomplished by the mercy and grace of God. That's right. And I'm just glad He's using to take, he's willing to take this dirt vessel, cracked and and buggered up as it is, he's willing to take it and use it for his glory.

Farewell And Ministry Information

SPEAKER_03 24:23

That's right. Exactly. I understand that. I do. Well, brother, my time is up. I'm thankful that you would share this with us. And uh and and I want you to know when the book is ready for publication, would you let me know first so that I can share it with my listeners? Because I'm satisfied that they'll buy up all your books in a big fat hurry.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

I sure will. As soon as I get the the books published, I'll let you know that I have some and and uh see what we can do. Um uh thank you, sir, for having me. I hope I didn't ramble too much.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

No, no. The stories you shared were were just perfect, perfect. And uh I'm sure my listeners will be happy, and I'm sure they'll be happy to send some contributions uh down to what'd you say, Christian Light?

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Christian Light Ministries in Jacksonville, Florida. I will uh after I hang after I hang up with you, I will send you the address.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

All right, and we'll attach it to this podcast. All right, brother. Thank you so much for your time and God bless you and uh and keep you and your family and especially your grand great granddaughter. All right.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Thank you, sir.

SPEAKER_03 25:28

You're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Robert Jackson. My guest today has been Gary Dawson, and I hope maybe in the future we can have him back again for another visit. Would that be okay, Gary?

SPEAKER_02 25:41

That would be fine.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

All right. Thank you kindly, and the Lord bless you. Remember that Jesus loves you and your doctor loves you. We'll be back again next week. Until then, may the Lord bless you. Real good.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, Instagram, or webpage at JacksonFamily Ministry.com. Also, don't forget to check out Dr. Jackson's books that are available on Amazon, Mr. Third Book, Turkey Tales, and 502, and his father's biography on Blackstar Silver Windows, the story of a country doctor, a family man, a patriot, and a political activist. This podcast is produced by Bobstone Audio Production.