“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”
Jim Elliot Jim Elliot was born in Portland, Oregon, to Fred and Clara Elliot.
In the fall of 1945, Jim entered Wheaton College, a private Christian college in Illinois, believing that God had led him there. He saw his time there as an opportunity to grow spiritually, develop discipline, and prepare for future missions work. He received a calling for Ecuador and he accepted.
He arrived in Ecuador on February 21, 1952, with the purpose of evangelising Ecuador’s Quechua Indians. On October 8, 1953, he married fellow Wheaton alumna and missionary Elisabeth Howard in Quito, Ecuador. Their only child, Valerie, was born February 27, 1955. While working with the Quechua Indians, Elliot began preparing to reach the violent Huaorani Indian tribe which were known at the time as the Aucas.
He and four other missionaries, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Peter Fleming, and their pilot, Nate Saint, made contact from their airplane with the Huaorani Indians using a loudspeaker and a basket to pass down gifts. After several months, the men decided to build a base a short distance from the Indian tribe, along the Curaray River. There they were approached one time by a small group of Huaorani Indians and even gave an airplane ride to one curious Huaorani whom they called “George” (his real name was Naenkiwi). Encouraged by these friendly encounters, they began plans to visit the Huaorani, but their plans were preempted by the arrival of a larger group of 10 Huaorani men, who killed Elliot and his four companions on January 8, 1956. Elliot’s mutilated body was found downstream, along with those of the other men, except that of Ed McCully.
He sacrificed his life for the call he received. He walked in the light of the Mission as clearly as though there were sunshine to it. He took every step as confidently and as certainly as though he knew just exactly where he was going. In fact, he said that much. He says I know from whence I came and I know where I go.
During his life, Jim Elliot longed for more people to become missionaries. In his death, however, he probably inspired more people to go to other countries to share the love of Jesus than he ever could have in life. The workmen that fell in Ecuador, the work that didn’t and is still burning across nations. Jim Elliot may have fallen in Ecuador, but the impact of his work didn’t stop there. Ecuador is a nation with 91% of its citizens being Christians. Jim Elliot had a dream to evangelise, and though he could not see it, the dream is a reality because he was relentless and went ahead and did what God wanted him to do. Jim Elliot was buried, but the work he started marched on winning a nation.
He went home young, but he left a legacy that saved a nation!