Jim Elliot

James Elliot was born on October 8, 1927, in Portland, Oregon, the third of four children. His father, Fred, was an evangelist and a man of the Plymouth Brethren, and his mother, Clara, was a devout woman who taught her children the Bible. The family was not wealthy, but it was rich in faith. Jim was a thoughtful and energetic boy. He was converted at an early age and he took his faith seriously. In high school, he was a good student and a speaker, and he was active in the church. He thought of a career in the ministry.

In 1945 he entered Wheaton College in Illinois. He was a member of the wrestling team and a leader in the Foreign Missions Fellowship. He was a young man of strong convictions, and he kept a journal in which he wrote of his struggles and his desire to know God. In October 1949, he wrote a line that has become famous, to the effect that he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. It was a note to himself, written during a time of prayer, about a commitment to missions.

At Wheaton, he met Elisabeth Howard, a student who shared his burden for missions. They were close, but both believed that God might call them to separate lives. They put the relationship in the hands of the Lord and waited for years before they spoke of marriage. In 1952, he and his friend Pete Fleming sailed to Ecuador as missionaries, with the Plymouth Brethren, and they went to work among the Quichua Indians. He learned Spanish and the Quichua language and lived in the jungle. In 1953, he and Elisabeth were married in Quito.

He was a man with a deep sense of mission. He had heard of the Waorani, a tribe in the Ecuadorian rainforest, who were known for their violence. They had killed outsiders who entered their land, and they were locked in cycles of revenge among themselves. No outsider had been able to make contact with them. Jim felt that God was calling him to reach them. In 1955, with four other missionaries, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully and Roger Youderian, he began a project they called Operation Auca, using the Waorani's Quichua nickname, which meant savage.

The men began by dropping gifts from a small airplane flown by Nate Saint. They used a basket lowered on a rope. Over several months, the Waorani responded with gifts of their own. After some time, the missionaries decided to land on a sandbar by the Curaray River, near the Waorani village. On January 3, 1956, they set up a camp. Several days later, a small group of Waorani appeared, and the missionaries greeted them. There was some friendly contact, and one of them was given a short flight. On January 8, 1956, a larger party of Waorani warriors came to the camp, and the five men were speared to death.

They did not use their guns to defend themselves. They had agreed beforehand that they would not shoot, since they were ready to die and the Waorani were not. The news was carried around the world, and Life magazine ran a long report. Jim was twenty-eight years old. He left behind his wife and a ten-month-old daughter, Valerie. His wife, Elisabeth, would go on to live with the Waorani. His death moved many young people to give their lives for missions.

He was a man with faults. He could be intense and hard on himself and others. His journals show his struggles with pride and with temptation. He was impulsive, and his plan to contact the Waorani has been criticized as risky. Yet he faced those risks with open eyes. His life shows that a short life, wholly given, can have a long reach. The Waorani later came to faith, and some of those who killed him became Christian leaders.