[This transcript has been edited for easier reading]

Today we're going to be looking at the story of Elizabeth Elliot. 

Our story starts in 1926 when Elizabeth was born in Brussels in Belgium, to a missionary couple. She was born into a strong Christian home with very clear, strong Christian teaching. The mother came from a very well-to-do background, but her father came from more humbler means. 

Soon after Elizabeth was born - she might have been a toddler - her father got a job as an editor for the Sunday School Times, and so the family moved from Belgium all the way to America, to Philadelphia, where her father would work. The Howard's upbringing at this time was very ordered and disciplined, and Elizabeth lived in this routine. Her parents insisted that the children present themselves at breakfast at 6:59 in the morning, and every day they participated in family devotions. This was very important, and Elizabeth had a clear sense of the importance of this time. She would listen as her father explained from readings from Jonathan Edwards and Charles Spurgeon, and they would sing hymns and read the Scripture together. She remembers that not one day of the year would they miss this time together. In fact, she remembers going on a holiday where they had to leave at 5am, and yet they had to wake up earlier because they would not miss this time. But despite all this strictness, it was certainly not a cold upbringing, though there was perhaps not much show of outward affection. 

Young Betty, as she was known to her family and friends, asked the Lord to be her Saviour when she was four, or maybe even just five years old, but of course, there were many influences along the way. With her father's job as the editor of the Sunday School Times, they had a lot of interesting guests for dinner. Betty remembers sitting at the table listening to stories that came out of Africa, and India and China - all these different missionaries she met during her childhood. During these dinners, she remembers particularly meeting a young lady who shared her name - this young lady was Betty, as well, and she was going to be a missionary in China. She sat there at the dinner table, and they talked about what she was going to be doing - she was going to a village, and she was going to work there. She was also going to marry another missionary who was already over in China. And the young Elizabeth remembered not so long after hearing the news, that this missionary couple had been caught up in the Long March, and both of them had been dragged out of the village and beheaded. Just moments before they had been dragged out of this village, they'd hidden their tiny baby - they had a newborn baby - they hid the little baby in a basket, pinning some money on to her jacket. Elizabeth remembered that this woman had been a guest at their dinner table, not so long before. For an eight-year-old, these events made a huge impression. She understood very clearly, from a very tender age, that to follow the Lord could cost you your life. 

Elizabeth attended a Christian boarding school in her high school years. This was the Hampden Dubose Academy, and this school really did shape her teenage years. Some accuse the school of being very legalistic, but for Betty it was very helpful. The students at this school loosely divided themselves into three groups, the MK's, PK's, and the OK's - the missionary's kids, preacher's kids, and ordinary kids. Her education was very broad. Of course, there was the usual thing, but on top of that, there were also the skills and the qualities needed for strong Christian leaders and for missionaries. You see, Elizabeth learnt how to sort and fold napkins for a dinner table, but then she also learned how to kill and gut a chicken and to build campfires. She used to go hiking, rowing, sailing - there was a lot of physical activity.

But the principal's wife, Mrs. Dubose was her name, had a particular emphasis. She was a formidable woman, and one of the things she would say to the students was, "Don't you dream of being a missionary, if you can't dust properly under your bed". This was something that Elizabeth took on board - it was your attitude in the little things that prepared you for the big things. 

From here, it was to Wheaton College. Elizabeth, in her high school years, had shown a particular aptitude for languages. She was very good with language, linguistics and things like that, and so she wanted to do something with this. There was one thing she was certain of at this time, and that was that she was going to be a missionary. It was one of the few things she was certain of. 

So she combined these skills that she had with what she felt the Lord was calling her to, and she decided that she would study Greek. This she felt would equip her to be a translator and to be able to even translate the Bible into a language that had not been done before. This was her aim and her desire. 

From here she went to Canada, and she studied with the Wickliffe Translators. But during her time at Wheaton, she met a young man by the name of Jim Elliot. Now, Jim was an outgoing, strapping, athletic, young man. But what really drew Elizabeth to him was the fact that he was so devoted to the Lord. He also had a very clear idea that the Lord was calling him to perhaps bring the gospel to remote areas, to unreached people groups. He was really clear about this. 

Now, Betty did, of course, admire Jim from afar, but she was a very shy, reserved sort of person, and she certainly didn't believe that Jim would even notice her. She called herself a bit of a wallflower. In fact, this was something that she really mourned about in herself. She knew that she was very introspective, an introvert, reserved, sometimes to the point of coming across as a bit cold and unfriendly. How on earth could she be a missionary, if everyone thought she was distant and cold and insensitive? She really wanted to work on this to change, and it was something that she often came back to over her life. 

Meanwhile, Jim Elliott had noticed Betty, but he was very sure that the Lord was calling him to be a missionary as a single man. He had very clear views that he couldn't possibly be married and serve the Lord wholeheartedly in those dangerous regions where he felt called to. In fact, he was clear that he wanted to live a life of total abandonment to Christ. In his diary, he wrote some lines that have become quite well known. He wrote, "He is no fool, who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose". 

But Elizabeth and Jim were very drawn to each other, despite being so different outwardly, in their personality, but there was a communion in their thinking. And they were drawn together by their circumstances. Jim too was studying Greek. He also was a roommate with Elizabeth's brother, Dave. But he was very clear that the Lord was calling him to be a missionary. So he didn't know what to do with this. He felt that perhaps the Lord wanted him to lay this down, but he couldn't get rid of the feeling that it was Elizabeth and Elizabeth only. The two of them decided that they needed to pursue the Lord first. This was a lonely, lonely time for Elizabeth. She loved Jim passionately. But she was really unsure about her future because Jim was so confused and unsure about his. He was so convinced about this idea that he would be a single man on the mission field, and not only that, but he had been encouraging other people to pursue this. He had been studying Paul's writings and he'd been encouraging his friends and telling them that they needed to do this and to be "unfettered", as he would put it.

Well, Elizabeth cried and cried when she heard that her younger sister was going to be engaged. Why was it like this for her? She felt stuck in this no man's land. As Jim was poring over Paul's writings about marriage and seeking the Lord's guidance, she was stuck. And for Jim, he was wondering, "Is the relationship even right? Should I lay it down? Or should I get married? Should I wait?" - all these questions. All Elizabeth got was raised eyebrows from everybody around her. But Elizabeth realized that there was only one thing she could do, and that was to seek the Lord, to continue to follow Him, and continue to be trained as a single woman for the mission field. Well, it really was all quite a muddle, because the family and friends of Elizabeth and Jim knew that they loved each other. Even Jim's friends were saying to him, "What are you doing?" 

But soon the opportunity came for Jim to go to Ecuador. There was a new settlement being established, and he and a friend, by the name of Pete Fleming, were asked to go to help do the manual labor there, to teach in a school, to build some buildings, and all of those things. This particular settlement was on the western side of Ecuador, near the Amazon basin. They would be working with the Puyupungu tribe, an Indian tribe. Elizabeth, of course, had to farewell Jim and was completely in the dark about what her future held - if their future held anything together. 

In 1952, Betty felt that the Lord was calling her to Ecuador. There was an opportunity there which was perfect for her. It was an opportunity to do some translation work, the groundwork needed to look at a translation of the Bible into a language that had no written form. She was going to be sent to the eastern side of Ecuador, to the Colorados Indians. She was very eager about this - it was a wonderful opportunity - and she was so keen to use the skills that she had learned and developed, and her gifts, and to do this work. But of course, everyone thought that she was just chasing Jim - which she wasn't. 

During this time, she felt that the Lord had called her, and it was very much a time of sanctification for Elizabeth. She had an idea of what missionary life would be like. She was sure that the Lord had called her and she was also sure that she was acting in selfless obedience, so there would be no reason that the Lord would not show His power, that the Lord would not grant them spiritual success there. She was ready for hardship, and she had no concerns or qualms about suffering. She knew that it would be difficult, but she thought that, in that suffering, there would be glorious victory. 

Well, this time was anything but that. Elizabeth worked tirelessly when she got there. She threw herself into studying the language. It was a tribal language, it was difficult. And her role was to turn his language into a written form. She needed people who could help her with this, people who were bilingual in Spanish and the Colorados language, and it was very difficult to find someone like that. She prayed and prayed and prayed about this, and asked the Lord, "It's Your work, please provide someone!" The Lord did answer her prayer. And along came a man by the name of Don Macario. 

Don Macario was perfect for this. He was a believer, a recent convert, he needed a job, he was bilingual in Spanish and the Colorados language. Of course, Elizabeth too had learned Spanish, and so this was perfect. She would be able to learn the language quickly, get the vocabulary and understand it. So she thanked the Lord. The work was progressing well through this man. Elizabeth made great gains, she drew up charts and sounds and had files of vocabulary very quickly. 

But shortly after this Macario was on his farm near the settlement and a group of men burst in and demanded the land. Macario said, "I own the land - it is mine." And so one of the men pulled out a gun and shot Macario in the head, point blank. The missionaries and some of the other workers heard the shot, came and saw Macario lying dead in a pool of his own blood. They wrapped him up in a poncho and brought him back. 

The horror and injustice of this shook Elizabeth to the core. Such a random act! These people came out of nowhere and just shot him before he could hardly say anything - it was so senseless. Why did the Lord allow it - the one person who could speak Spanish and the Colorados language, the work was just started, and it was progressing? Of course, now it came to a grinding halt. Betty really struggled to understand the Lord in this. 

A letter soon arrived from one of Jim's friends, the fellow missionaries who were working in Ecuador, and indicated in this letter that Elizabeth should come to Quito, and that she should come there to meet Jim. Well, Elizabeth's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that after all this time, Jim had finally come to peace with the idea of marriage? Could it be that he was about to propose to her? 

She made the long, arduous journey from the eastern side of Ecuador, all the way to Quito, one of the main cities there. And there they stayed with another missionary couple, and Jim arrived, and Jim did propose to Elizabeth. It had been five long years of uncertainty. Five years! And they were soon to be married. 

So after a few days of bliss in the city of Quito, Elizabeth made the long journey back to the Colorados Indians. Now, she knew that her time was limited - she would be moving away very soon - and so she worked feverishly. She wanted to establish the groundwork for this language to enable the Bible to be translated. And so she worked and worked. She had some understanding of the language, but she had to try and work it out herself - now she didn't have anyone who was bilingual. So she worked to record the vocabulary. She sorted out everything she had, all the files and she labelled things. And when it was time to leave, she packed everything up neatly into one suitcase - one suitcase with hundreds of cards of vocabulary, sound charts - everything the missionaries who would be staying there would need. All the groundwork she felt was done, and she had done it with a lot of effort. 

Not long afterwards, Elizabeth moved to another mission station. She had to learn the Quechua language. She was going to be moving over to the western side where Jim was, and so she needed to understand the Quechua language, a new tribal language, and so she had moved to another station in order to start studying this language. While she was there, she received a telegram from one of the missionaries from the Colorados region. They told her that that suitcase, full of all the language work that Betty had worked and labored so hard over, had been stolen off the back of a truck. All the work was gone! Betty couldn't believe it. She just couldn't understand what was going on. How could it be that that one suitcase was stolen? It was that one! How did the Lord allow these two random acts, the senseless murder of Macario first, and now this? Everything that she had done amongst the Colorados Indians, it seemed, was a waste. It was all for nothing. Later, Betty would reflect on his time as a time of really good, but hard, training. She had learned an important lesson about God's sovereignty, and how she needed to learn humility. Of course, she'd known this in theory, but now she knew in practice that God's ways were certainly not her ways. 

Once married, Jim and Elizabeth moved to the Puyupungu Indian region, and they threw themselves into their work. There was, of course, a lot of physical work - there was building work to be done - in fact Jim built a house for them. Elizabeth taught in school, but she was also trained in midwifery, so she delivered babies, she treated snakebites, she helped with any sort of infections, gave injections etc. The Quechua Indians accepted them wholeheartedly. They often provided them with food from the hunts, an armadillo leg, a bit of manioc or smoked fish, a bit of monkey, that type of thing. They tried hard to fit in with the tribal life. They learned to trek through the jungle - Elizabeth remembers running barefoot through the jungle to deliver a baby. And they worked on understanding the Quechua culture as well. 

The Shell Oil Company had attempted to set up a settlement - they were looking for oil, and they had wanted to set up the settlement in the Amazon jungle. But where they were setting it up was very close, if not in, the tribal lands of the Waorani people. This was a fierce tribe, a tribe known for their violence and the Quechua Indians feared them. Soon, many of the Shell workers were being speared to death. The Waorani people would emerge from the jungle and descend on them and disappear. Soon Shell ended up having to abandon the settlement, and the Ecuadorians themselves wouldn't go there. These people were feared. 

Nate Saint was one of Jim's friends. He was a pilot for MAF, the Missionary Aviation Fellowship, and his job was to fly supplies to different remote outposts, to check on missionaries, etc. He had been told to avoid flying over this particular part of the Amazon jungle. The reason was because if there was something wrong with the plane, and he had to make an emergency landing, he would just be speared to death. That's what he was told. 

All these stories of the Waorani people made Jim think about the idea of reaching them with the gospel. He was drawn to these people. They wondered if it would somehow be possible to make contact with this tribe that no foreigner had ever managed to make contact with and survive. I wasn't just Jim, there were three missionaries who shared this and who prayed to the Lord about the possibility of reaching these people. In fact, it was five of them in the end that worked together, five missionaries that banded together and discussed how they would manage to show them that the white man was actually friendly, that the contact that they were going to make would be peaceful. 

They came up with this idea. They did have one person who knew something of the Waorani language. This person was a young lady by the name of Dayuma. Now, Dayuma had run away from the Waorani tribe, escaping from some internal trouble. She had run to a farm and ended up working on the farm as a servant. So she knew something of the Quechua language and, of course, the Waorani language. And so she taught Jim and some of the other missionaries some phrases, some, "We come in peace" type phrases. 

But they also needed to do something for the tribe to show that they were going to be peaceful in their contact. And so they came up with the idea of flying the plane - Nate Saint was going to fly the plane low as he had already spotted where the settlements were - they could see them from the air. They decided that they would drop gifts onto the shore of the river there and hopefully, in this way, show that they were coming in peace. 

Well, soon they were doing regular flights - this was over many months, - regular flights over this particular region where they knew that the Waorani were. They would drop things like axes, aluminium pots, all sorts of things. Soon they were they were lowering things on a rope in a bucket and the Waorani people soon came to expect the gifts. They would run out, the children would be there, they would be looking, waiting for the plane. It was progressing well, and soon the Waorani people were taking what was in the bucket, and also putting a gift in - they had some hand woven headbands, and on one occasion, there was a live parrot that was given to them. This was very promising. It was like Waorani were understanding that this was positive contact, these people were wanting to come in peace. 

Elizabeth was just as excited as Jim, and she really wanted to be involved. In fact, she argued that her involvement would be a good idea. As a woman, they would understand that there was no fighting here, they were not going to come with violence - surely as a woman she would be able to send that message. But Jim wouldn't hear of it, especially now. Because in 1955, they had a little baby girl by the name of Valerie, and Elizabeth needed to care for her. 

After several months of these gift drops, the men decided it was time to make contact. This would be a historic moment. They were going to land on a beach, which they nicknamed Palm Beach. This was a beach fairly close to where the Waorani were, and the settlements were - they could see that from the plane. The men had, of course, a radio so that they could contact their wives at the mission base. They had been praying for this moment for months and months and months. Everything went to plan, they landed and set up their camp. And in just a few days two Waorani men and two Waorani women emerged from the jungle, and they approached the camp. Jim and the other missionaries, with their well-practiced phrases, said them over and over again, trying to make sure that there was a clear understanding that it was all peaceful. These four Waorani people came, they shared the food, and they were very happy. In fact, they slept at the campfire overnight. There was no evidence that they were angry or violent or anything. In fact, quite the opposite. It was very promising. They thought that the Lord was answering everything, all their prayers to this point - everything was going as they had hoped. 

The next day the four Waorani just disappeared into the jungle. Now, of course the men were sure that they were probably going to come back again, but probably with more people and probably with the tribal members or key people from the tribe, but they had no way of really knowing. It had been such a positive contact. Well, that morning Nate Saint flew the plane again over the jungle, and he noticed that there were some men moving through the jungle, and they were headed in the right direction. So he radioed back immediately and said, "I'm seeing people moving, they're moving, they're coming towards us. They'll probably be here by this afternoon. Today is the day, today we are going to make contact with this tribe." Well, this was transmitted back to the mission base as well and to the five wives of the five missionaries who were also joining them in prayer. The men said that they would radio back at 4:30 that afternoon. 

Little did the missionaries know that the two men who had gone back to the tribe had completely lied about this contact with the foreigners. They hadn't said that it was a friendly contact. They had lied about it, saying that these five foreigners wanted to kill them. The reason they did this was to shift the blame from some internal dispute, something completely unrelated. They saw an opportunity to shift the anger of the tribe onto the foreigners for their own personal benefit. 

When they saw the men running through the jungle, they were coming, but not peacefully. In fact, they'd planned an ambush. They were coming in a fury, a frenzy. And so, when Jim and the other four were waiting, and finally saw the two women that had come previously, walking towards them out of the jungle, Jim hopped up straightaway, and he ran towards them shouting the practiced phrases, and trying to gesture and, and show their welcome, and Pete Fleming also was with him, and they were running towards them. And then, when they were close enough, men came out of the jungle, at least five men with their spears, and Jim was speared first. And within minutes, all five missionaries had been speared to death. By about 3:30 in the afternoon, the men had been speared repeatedly, as was the Waorani custom, to the point of being unidentifiable. The plane had been completely ransacked and ruined. And the Waorani themselves disappeared back into the jungle. 

Now the women waited all afternoon, and some of them were getting quite nervous as 4:30 passed. But it didn't worry Elizabeth, she was just thinking that in the excitement of the moment, they'd forgotten. They'd probably hear later that night. When they didn't hear later that night, and there was complete silence on the radio, they did start to worry. And the next morning, when there was still no sign and no message on the radio or anything, they were very worried. Soon another MAF plane came, and they chartered it to fly over the area where they knew that the man had set up camp. When the plane flew over and saw the wreck of the Nate Saint's plane, they knew something had gone wrong. They quickly organized a rescue mission and soon, when they came onto that area of Palm Beach, they discovered all five bodies, identified only by shoes and items of clothing. 

Betty was now a widow, and she had a little girl, 10 months old. She'd been married just over two years. Why had the Lord allowed this? Betty had absolutely no answers at all. She had already learned to lay everything down. And she had learned that, as Amy Carmichael, another missionary who she greatly respected had famously said, being a missionary was a chance to die. She understood this as not physical death, but the every-day death. The every-day laying things down. In her journal, Elizabeth wrote, "God has arranged it thus. So it must be." 

Elizabeth realized that she had lost her most precious possession in Jim, and with his death, all their plans of a future together that they had talked about, how they would serve these Indians that they were living amongst in their home in Shandia, and how they would bring up their family. They had wanted to have more children, they had even discussed that if they had another little girl, her name would be Evangeline. All of this that she had looked forward to for so long, had been taken away and was completely gone. But strangely, she had no hate for the Waorani, and she recognized this as something very odd. She prayed a prayer that the Lord would take her to them, that she would be able to do something for them. At the time, she thought this was an absurd prayer. 

Well, everyone had their opinions about what she should do, and the other for widows. You see, all of this had played out in the headlines in America as well. They were getting letters left, right and center. Everyone had their opinion. Everyone had their opinion about what happened and what went wrong. But everyone felt that Elizabeth should go back to America. It just wasn't right for a single woman to live out in the jungle. She'd be the only missionary in that area where the Quechua tribe was around Shandia. She'd be the only one, and she had a young daughter as well - surely it was not appropriate. But Elizabeth wanted to stay. And she wanted to continue with the people. In fact, the last thing Jim had said to her was, "If I don't come back, teach the believers, darling. We've got to teach the believers." She took that to heart, and she decided that that is what she would do. 

Well, she continued her work. But as she continued on in Shandia, she soon realized how much there was to do. Suddenly, without Jim, it was overwhelming. She had to manage workers who were doing building work, she had to manage wages, there was also the airstrip which needed to be constantly cleared, she had to run a diesel generator, there was a half done hydroelectric system that she had no idea about. And then, of course, she had to run the school, she had to deliver babies and treat snake bites and all the usual things. But also she had to teach the Indian men because they would speak on Sundays - she didn't feel she could assume this role. So she had to teach them the Scriptures so that they could speak and teach their own people. On top of that, there was the half-finished translation of the Gospel of Luke that she and Jim had been working on. And of course, she had to look after a one-year-old. 

Well, everything just felt like a weight. She felt impatient at times and very restless, and then at other times extremely overwhelmed and intensely lonely. Sometimes her days were consumed by such menial tasks that she wondered why she was even there. And all times she begged the Lord to take her away, that she would die - she felt at times that it was impossible to continue. Without Jim, how could she? 

But it was at this time that she learned a hard lesson, but another good lesson. She wrote, "Sometimes life is so hard, you can only do the next thing. Whatever that is, just do the next thing, and God will meet you there." 

But as the months passed, she started to see great fruit amongst the Quechua Indians she was living with.  You see the men would preach, and very simply, but people were coming forward, people were wanting to know the Lord Jesus, people were hungry. And soon they were baptizing more and more people. And then they were hungry to know more of the Lord. This hadn't happened before. Elizabeth realized that the Holy Spirit was at work amongst these people. 

Elizabeth did return to America for a short while, and this was because she was asked to write a book about the five missionaries and what had happened. The book - some of you may have heard of it - is called "Through Gates of Splendor". 

Well, the minute she finished that book and it was all through to the publishers, she decided that she would return to Shandia with Valerie. She had coped with so much already, the shock and the sudden loss of Jim and the other four missionaries. On top of that, the grief and the hard work, being alone on this Quechua settlement - all of that she'd coped with. But now there was another test. It was a huge test for her, and certainly not one she expected.

When she returned to Shandia, the house that Jim built had been occupied by another missionary family who were living there. It was a big enough house, and it ended up that Elizabeth and Valerie were able to live in the same house - they had a room in this house. But living with this other family brought Elizabeth to her knees. This family was messy and completely disorganized. They did not care for the things - the furniture and all the things that Jim had so lovingly made. And the last straw for Elizabeth was - well, the husband would clean out his ears with a bobby pin at the breakfast table! 

All this brought her to the edge of herself. The careful discipline, stoic reserved, Elisabeth, really, really struggled at this point. She had coped with all those other things, but this this was just too much She wrote in her diary, "Oh, the loneliness, the utter, vacuous, vast, inconsolable, irremediable loneliness of my position." It was too great. "O Lord, take me out of here." Through this seemingly petty, domestic situation, the Lord revealed even more of himself to Betty. She realized that she had not laid down everything for Christ. Soon she decided that she would let the family have the house that Jim had built, and she moved away with Valerie. 

But for her, the future was still very much a blank wall. In her mind, she was still very clear that the Lord was calling her in some way to do something with the Waorani people. She wanted to go to them, but how was she going to go to them? She certainly couldn't just walk into the jungle and present herself. It would have to be by some miracle. "And why not?", she thought, "The Lord uses weak things." She certainly felt that herself. Elizabeth and her little daughter, Valerie, qualified as weak things. 

Now there was news of the Waorani tribe's movement. In fact, there was a missionary by the name of Dr. Tidmarsh, who had a hut nearby an airstrip which were they were working on, and this airstrip was very close to the Waorani lands. On one occasion, the Waorani appeared out of the jungle and completely destroyed and ransacked the hut, tore up books and everything. They left two crossed spears at the door and disappeared back into the jungle. Thankfully, Dr. Tidmarsh was not there at the time. 

But all these stories did nothing to deter Elizabeth. Her family felt that she had some sort of suicidal tendency, or something, with her desire to go to this tribe. But Elizabeth was clear that this must come from the Lord, and so she prayed more and more, "Here I am, Lord, send me." 

And then the miracle. It was 6am November 13th, 1957, almost two years after Jim's death, when two women walked out of the jungle and approached the Quechua settlement. The surprised Quechua Indians immediately recognized them as the Waorani and offered them food and shelter. These two women came, and they didn't look like they were in any hurry, they weren't passing through. They came, they stayed they slept. And they seemed in no hurry to move on. 

The news spread quickly, and Betty happened to hear this news by chance - she was visiting another missionary at the time. And the news came to this other missionary who was only a few hours away from the Quechua settlement where the women had appeared and Elizabeth, who just happened to be there, heard this news and immediately grabbed her things, a tape recorder, anything that she had with her, and she decided she would make the journey to meet these women.

When she got there, she immediately recognized the older lady. The older lady was the same woman who had emerged just two years before when the missionaries had camped on the beach. She recognized her because Jim and the other missionaries had taken photographs, and they had this photograph, and it was very clear that it was the same woman. 

The women were in no hurry to move, and it looked like they had moved in, and so Betty decided that she would move Valerie, and that they would live in this settlement and stay with these Waorani women. She thought it would be the best opportunity for her to at least learn some of the language and get familiar with it. And this was a very exciting time - she felt a huge weight of responsibility. The task of learning this language was formidable, but she thought that this was obviously orchestrated by the Lord. 

After she'd settled in, that very next morning, she decided that she was going to wash little Valerie in the river. So she was bathing Val there in the river, when suddenly the Quechua men came screaming and running. They were screaming, "Waorani, Waorani!" Elizabeth didn't know what was happening. She grabbed Val and they ran through the river - she didn't know where she was running or anything. Then they realized that the Waorani had just emerged from the jungle, and they had speared one of the young men by name, Honorario. They had speared him 22 times, and then abducted his young wife. This was horrible, and when Betty saw the body of Honorario, with the spears still sticking in him, it suddenly brought back to her all the emotion, the raw emotion, of that moment when she knew about Jim and his spearing. Seeing this mutilated body, made her want to run away. She was suddenly overcome, she felt physically sick, she needed to run, she needed to get out of there, she just wanted to leave and forget it all. 

Well, she had learned at this point that she needed to lay everything down. And so she prayed that she would be able to lay down this raw emotion that was rising in her. And she asked the Lord, "If You want me to stay, it will have to be by Your grace that I'll be able to remain." And she did.

Now at that time, there was not a lot known about the Waorani people at all. This was the late 1950's, and this tribe had been isolated for centuries. In fact, their language bore no resemblance to the other tribal languages. They had a particular way of dressing with the particular tradition of the ear holes with the balsa wood in their ears. And they were semi nomadic. They did do some farming, but they could move on instantly. The violence within the tribe was so high that many people thought that they would cause themselves to become extinct, that's how high the homicide rate was. You see, disputes were dealt with through spearing, and the casual nature of life and death was just a part of life as a Waorani tribesman. They hated the foreigners and they feared them. They were encroaching on their hunting grounds. The tribe very much lived in the present. They didn't have a religion - they had some spiritual ideas about the origin of life, but they lived in the present. They had to hunt every day for food, their shelters were very simple and could be erected in a day and taken down in a lot less. They lived such a simple life, very much in the present. In fact, even the idea of mourning for someone who died a month ago - why would you, they're dead, they're gone. That was how they lived.

Now Elizabeth really struggled at this point with the waiting. The two Waorani women who had come into the Quechua settlement didn't seem in any hurry to go anywhere. Communication was impossible, and no one could tell what they were doing there, why they'd come in, how long they were going to stay, what was going to happen. Betty did try so hard with the communication, trying to learn the language, but it was difficult when there was no common language. And of course, the Waorani didn't understand what Betty was doing, and so they were completely indifferent to her. 

Now Dayuma, the Waorani woman who had escaped to a farm years before, came to meet these women and recognized them and knew them. Through these women she found out information about her family members, and Dayuma decided that she also wanted to go back. But with Dayuma here as well, because Elizabeth understood the Quechua language, and Dayuma could speak the Waorani language and the Quito language, suddenly Elizabeth was able to communicate a little bit and start to learn the Waorani language. Soon the women were talking about leaving, and they wanted Elizabeth to come with them to go back to the tribe. And so Elizabeth said, "They killed my husband. Will they kill me, or will they kill Valerie?" And the women said, "No, and we will share food with you. We will carry Valerie over the jungle trails, and we will tell the tribe that you are our mother, and we love you." Well, Betty wasn't sure that that that was going to be the case. How could she know? But she did feel that this was an opening. 

So eventually, two missionaries, Elizabeth and little Valerie, and Rachel Saint, the sister of Nate Saint, decided to make the journey with these women into the Waorani territory and meet the tribe. This would definitely be historic contact - if they were able to survive. Of course, their mission was also to bring the gospel to these people who had never heard it, and to learn the language in order perhaps to even translate some of the Bible into the language. Elizabeth knew that there was no assurance whatsoever that there would be any sort of physical protection from the Lord. Think about what happened with Jim. 

Betty clearly had a gift for language, but so did her three-year-old daughter, and her three-year-old was imitating the Waorani language songs, she was able to speak it perfectly, she was picking up words daily from all the young children. Betty and Rachel were accepted in the tribe, but they were not particularly welcomed. They were often laughed at - they were the source of amusement to the tribe, but there was no sense of violence towards them. 

Betty worked hard trying to record the language and she took a lot of photos during this time. Everything that they did was under the scrutiny of the Waorani people - the houses that they lived in had no walls, and people came and went as they pleased. You didn't have your own space. And as Betty wrote in her journals, there were often people watching her. In fact, she would wake up sometimes and find that people were watching her as she slept. They would laugh at her as she washed Val's clothes in the river - they thought it was just such a waste of time. What was she doing? Washing the pots, washing these clothes? It just seemed so silly. And Elizabeth herself felt like such a waste of space. She couldn't cut the manioc, she couldn't get firewood, there were so many things she couldn't do. And these were things that the Waorani children could do.

Well, there were times when they realized that they really were a burden. Val herself had become very much at ease amongst these people. But Betty and Rachel found that they were a burden to them. You see the Waorani needed to hunt for food - Betty and Rachel couldn't hunt - and so the food was shared, but there were times when the hunt wasn't good, and the whole tribe just went hungry. So Betty and Rachel decided they would need food dropped in by the planes, the MAF planes, and Val would need milk and so on. Well, the tribal people thought this was most amusing, and they would put their fingers in the food and sniff at it, often in disgust at things like oatmeal and coffee. 

Dayuma, who had joined the tribe again, and was now much older, wanted to share some of the Bible stories that she had learned from Rachel Saint with her tribal members, with her family especially. But this was very strange, because the tribe was not used to this idea of one person talking and everybody listening, and the idea of praying - all this was so foreign to them that the people were willing to hear. And they were willing to listen as Dayuma told them about this man, Jesus, and what he did. Gradually, the people were taught from the Bible, though it was very difficult getting the concepts through. I mean, the language that they had was so connected to their immediate jungle culture they simply didn't have words for things. But Elizabeth looked on in wonder as the Lord did work amongst these people. And these hardened warriors, these hardened men, some of them decided to give up their violent way of life, their spearing, and they talked about how Jesus was speared for them, and how they now wanted to follow his jungle trail. 

Now, Betty wasn't given ever to triumphal statements of success or anything like that, and she realized that the concepts that these people had were hazy at best, but she did feel that the gospel had come to the Waorani in some way because she could see the fruit of it in their lives. While she was there, more of the story of what happened on the 8th of January in 1956 with the five missionaries came out. This is when she found out that the whole reason for their death was completely senseless and nothing to do with the missionaries themselves, but more to do with an internal dispute. She marvelled at the fact that, here she was, seated around the fire, sharing roasted monkey claw, with the very men who had speared her husband so brutally. One of the men, Mincaye, called her one day and said, "I killed your husband. I didn't live thoughtfully then. But now we know. Now we think about God. Now, we will not spear any more. You are now my younger sister. Your mother is my mother. Will you tell them that I call them family." And of course, Elizabeth said, "I will tell them." The Gospel had borne fruit. 

Now life in the Amazon jungle was anything but romantic. It was mud. It was bugs. It was snakes. It was hunger and a complete lack of privacy, plus the strain of communication. Elizabeth was learning the language fairly quickly, but it was still hard - they were often laughed at. But the biggest struggle for Elizabeth at this time was the extreme loneliness she felt. You see, her relationship with Rachel was a very rocky one.

The two women were very, very different and very strong, individual women. They had very different views and ways of working. Rachael believed that she had a clear vision that this was her calling - to come to this tribe and to live with them for the rest of her days. She didn't welcome Elizabeth's presence there at all, and she really didn't want to accept Elizabeth's help with language, even though it was very obvious that Elizabeth was far more gifted as a linguist than she was. 

This was a constant struggle for Elizabeth and a huge thorn in her side. She prayed and prayed about this relationship, but they really had no fellowship, and Rachel didn't even seem to want it. Although Elizabeth wanted reconciliation, and wanted things to be right, it seemed that Rachel had no desire for this either. To Elizabeth it was just so strange that the two of them were so foreign to each other - more foreign to each other than they were to the Waorani people. 

The differences were also very much manifest in the way they taught the people. Rachel, for example, wanted the people to wear clothing, for the sake of modesty, but Elizabeth felt that this was not necessary. The heart issue of vanity was not there - these people had no concept of thinking about outward appearance at all. They didn't dwell on it. Details like this led Elizabeth to examine what is Christian, and what is just culture, and were they bringing more avenues for sin to this people by insisting on their civilized Western ways. 

Soon even four-year-old Valerie was asking mom if they could leave. But through these life lessons Elizabeth learned, she understood that obedience happens despite your feelings. It was obedience that was important. And if the Lord wanted her to stay, and if there was work for her to do, then her emotions, her feelings were not a factor in this. 

But she began to feel increasingly useless with Val's expanding mind. There were no books, there was nothing for her and the living conditions were very difficult. And Rachel was simply not allowing Elizabeth to do any of the language work. Were it not for the conscious presence of Christ, Elizabeth felt that she would actually descend into insanity. During this time, she was very much encouraged by reading the biographies of other missionaries who'd gone before her - people like David Livingston, Mary Slessor, and Adoniram Judson, and she recognized in them the same feeling - this idea that if it were not for the presence of Christ, they too would have descended into madness. She knew God had not forsaken her, and so she continued on, and did the next thing. 

But after two years living with the tribe, Elizabeth made the difficult decision to leave. If you look in her journal, you see this was a really hard time for her and there was a lot of self-examination. Was she doing the wrong thing by leaving? Was she blind to some of the flaws in herself? She was actually worried sick by this - the stress of it was overwhelming. 

Now Elizabeth really did admire Rachel Saint. This woman had unwavering persistence, she was faithful in her teaching and Rachel believed that she would live out her days there, and she didn't want the help of anybody. Rachel did live out her days with the Waorani people. 

But the last blow for Elizabeth was that she found out that Rachel had told the Waorani that Elizabeth and Val will leaving because they were angry with them. Elizabeth was really hurt by this. She prayed to the Lord to allow her to forgive. So her departure from the Waorani people was completely inauspicious. In fact, few of the Waorani expressed anything. She and Val packed up their few possessions and walked out. They went to live with the Quito Indians in a nearby settlement, where she was going to figure out what on earth she was going to do next. She wrote to her mum in the letter at this time, "I find that faith is more vigorously exercised when there is no satisfying explanation for God's ways."

The two of them did decide to return to America. Through these experiences in Ecuador, Elizabeth realized that she had a subconscious idea that obedience to God takes you to a destination and then, once you're there, everything will flourish. But now she realized that a life of obedience never comes in for a landing. She wrote, "He leads right on, right through and right up to the threshold of heaven. He does not say to us ever, 'Here it is', but rather, 'Here am I, fear not'."

After she made the decision to leave Ecuador and return to America, Elizabeth felt a strong sense of peace. This was the right decision. She had been in Ecuador over eight years now. And on that very last night, when the home she was staying in was packed full of the Quichua people farewelling her, she took a moment to withdraw to a corner and she wrote in her journal. She quoted from Isaiah, "I the Lord have called thee. I will be with thee." And then she wrote, "Lord, You have kept your word." 

When she returned to America, she settled into a new life with her daughter, and she wrote many books that had been burning in her during her time in Ecuador. She was asked to speak constantly, and at this time, with the rise of feminism, she often debated feminists, and she wrote about this issue. She spoke mainly to university students. 

And then to her great surprise, she fell in love again, and she married a man by the name of Addison Leitch. She didn't ever think she would get married again, but here she had found a soulmate, a best friend. Finally, she settled into married life with Addison. But soon after their marriage, Addison was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, and Elizabeth found herself nursing Addison, and he ended up passing away after just four years of marriage. 

Elizabeth found herself again alone. Now in her late 40s, she had learned many lessons along the way. And so she just continued on. She continued speaking, writing, teaching, and she began a regular radio show called Gateway to Joy. 

Elizabeth would marry a third time, four years after the death of Addison, and her later years were also quite difficult for her, but in a different way. This gifted speaker, writer, linguist, lost her language altogether as she struggled with dementia. And in 2015, at the age of 88, Elizabeth Elliott passed away. 

But what a legacy this faithful saint has left us. Her varied experiences and the hard lessons that she had learned - many of which are recorded in her 25 books and a radio program which is now a podcast - these continue to encourage and instruct people. And now there are many believers amongst the Waorani people, although the tribe itself is not as isolated as it was before, and a lot more westernized. And there is a Bible translation in the Waorani language that was finished in 1992. 

Betty's obedience throughout her time as a missionary did not lead to stunning results that she could see, and there were many opinions about her husband Jim's death. Some people saw them as impulsive young men who barged in there with no understanding of the culture. Other people saw them as heroes, as martyrs. Other people saw it as a waste. One question that she was so often asked in America when she was speaking was, "Why do you think the Lord allowed Jim to die?" For her this was a really irrelevant question. She had personally learned not to ask why, but to ask what, "Lord, show me what You want me to do, and in that acceptance, I will obey, and there is peace."

Her journals and her letters show that she was very aware of her own personal flaws, her failings - she often wrote about her impatience, her sharp tongue, maybe her insensitivity, her stubborn nature. But what she also wrote was that the kingdom of God is like leaven and seed, things which work silently, secretly, and slowly. But there is in them an incalculable transforming power, even in the plainest soil, even in the darkness, lies the possibility of transformation. And I think, from our standpoint, we can be so encouraged to see the Holy Spirit's work in a fellow believer, a fellow believer who was willing to obey Jesus and simply do the next thing.