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Friday 2 January 2015

Jim Elliot

In 1945, Jim Elliot (1927- 1956) entered Wheaton College, a private Christian college in Illinois. Elliot first gained an interest in missions during his years at Wheaton.

At the end of his third year, Elliot attended the International Student Missionary Convention, sponsored by InterVarsity. There he met a missionary to Brazil, and this encounter led him to more firmly believe that his missionary calling was to tribal work in South America.

Elliot arrived in Ecuador on February 21, 1952, with the purpose of evangelizing Ecuador's Quechua Indians. He first stayed in Quito, and then moved to the jungle taking up residence at the Shandia mission station.

Taken from the DVD ''Beyond the Gates of Splendor'' Wikipedia Commons

On October 8, 1953, Jim Eliot married fellow Wheaton alumna and missionary Elisabeth Howard. The wedding was a simple civil ceremony held in Quito.

In early January 1956  Jim Elliot, pilot Nate Saint, and three other missionaries landed a plane on a river sandbar n the rain forests of Ecuador in order to make contact with the isolated ‘Auca’ Indians. Days later on January 8th, the five young men become martyrs when they were all speared to death.

The tragic death of the five young missionaries in Ecuador greatly impacted the lives of Christians around the world. Many were greatly affected by the fact that they paid the ultimate sacrifice for Christ.

In an incredible act of love, forgiveness and bravery, Nate Saint's sister Rachel and Jim Elliot’s widow Elisabeth went to Ecuador to make peaceful contact with the Auca people, including the men who had speared their loved ones.

Elisabeth later published two books, Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot and Through Gates of Splendor, which describe the life and death of her husband.

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