The term mendicant (from Latin: mendicans, "begging") refers to begging or relying on charitable donations, and is most widely used for religious followers or ascetics who rely exclusively on charity to survive.

In principle, mendicant orders or followers do not own property, either individually or collectively, and have taken a vow of poverty, in order that all their time and energy could be expended on practising or preaching their religion or way of life and serving the poor.

Many religious orders adhere to a mendicant way of life, including the Catholic mendicant orders, Hindu ascetics, some dervishes of Sufi Islam, and the monastic orders of Jainism and Buddhism. In the Catholic Church, followers of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Dominic became known as mendicants, as they would beg for food while they preached to the villages.

While mendicants are the original type of monks in Buddhism and have a long history in Indian Hinduism and the countries which adapted Indian religious traditions, they didn't become widespread in Christianity until the High Middle Ages. The Way of a Pilgrim depicts the life of an Eastern Christian mendicant.

Stephen Farris Saint (born January 30, 1951) is an Ecuadorian-born business entrepreneur, pilot, and author. He is known for being the son of Nate Saint, a famous missionary pilot, as well as for his own work among indigenous tribes.

Saint was born in Quito, Ecuador at a mission hospital. He was the second of Nate and Marj Saint's three children. He has an older sister, Kathy, and a younger brother, Philip. The family lived in Shell Mera, Ecuador where his father was a missionary pilot with Mission Aviation Fellowship. In 1956, his father and four other missionaries were killed by Waodani Indians during Operation Auca, in an effort to make peaceful contact with them.

After the death of Saint's father, the family moved to Quito where Saint attended school. It was during this time that his aunt, Rachel Saint, and Elisabeth Elliot successfully made peaceful contact with the Waodani and were living with them in the jungle. At 10 years of age, Saint first went to live with the Waodani, staying with them during the summers. He learned about living in the jungle, and also developed relationships with many members of the tribe. In June 1965, "Babae", as he was called by the tribe, was baptized in the Curaray River by Kimo and Dyuwi, two of his father's killers who had since converted to Christianity.