The story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot has become the narrative and inspiration for hundreds after them to commit their lives to the mission field. The deaths of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully and Roger Youderian were reportedly portrayed in the media as a tragedy, including Time and Life magazines, but the reports could make no sense of the risk-taking and sacrifice that was clearly not borne out of daredevil adventurism or voyeurism.

Their commitment to their calling eluded all reasoning of the popular media. The heroic culture of our time is that of the poor boy who becomes rich rather than one so rich who chooses to become poor. Jim Elliot and the other four missionaries who gave up their lives in reaching the Auca Indians with the gospel mirrors Christ who from Heaven’s riches came to earth willingly to die a lowly and painful death so that we may be reconciled with God.

The missionaries carried guns primarily for protection against wild animals but were careful to keep them out of sight. They had agreed with each other before God that they would not use it in a human attack, even if it meant facing certain death, for this was the way Christ won the world with God’s message of salvation. The armies of heaven were at ready to rescue Him from the cross at His command, but that would have defeated God’s purpose.

It was the realisation by the Auca people that the missionaries were capable of defending themselves but had chosen not to that perplexed and haunted them for a long time.

When the Aucas kill, they use the strategy of superior force in numbers to overwhelm their prey. Six Aucas with spears were no match for five foreigners armed with guns, and so Gikita the Auca leader, decided that the element of surprise was necessary. On that early Sunday afternoon, the six attackers came out of the jungle to greet the missionaries in a friendly manner as they had in previous
contacts. Gikita sent three women ahead to the far side of the river to distract and separate the missionaries as a strategy for the attack. Jim and Peter waded into the river to greet the women. Nampa, a young Auca warrior, ran towards them and speared Jim first. Gikita then rushed at Nate, spearing him, and then turned on Ed who had gone to Nate’s aid. Roger, who ran to the plane parked on the river sand bank to radio their situation, was speared in the back.

During the attack, Peter who was wading out with Jim to greet the women, had rushed to the far side of the river and called out in what little Auca he knew, saying “We just came to meet you and not to hurt anyone. Why are you attacking us”? If he had fled into the jungle, he would have lived. Instead, he waited and was speared by one of the young Aucas called Kimo. In Auca custom, the bodies of the five missionaries were thrown into the river. Four of the bodies were recovered from the river by a search and rescue party sent out the next day, but Ed McCully’s body had been washed away.

After the killings, the Auca Indians saw what they later described as angels singing above the trees. Instinctively, they knew the bright lights they saw moving around, shining like a sky full of beetles similar to fireflies but brighter and unblinking, were something supernatural. This experience was what drew one of women present at the attack to believe in God. They were able to later identify the music from a record player to be choral singing.

The missionary widows, not to be distracted by the public outpouring of sympathy or their personal loss, had boldly ventured into the Ecuadorian jungle again in late 1958 with their young children, establishing a mission among the Auca people and eventually winning the entire tribe for Christ. Gikita, now a forgiven believer, has seen his children and grand-children grow up without the constant fear of spearing, and dreams only of going to heaven and living peacefully with the five men who came to tell
him about his creator God.

The five missionaries left behind nine children and one unborn. They never got to watch their children grow up and enjoy their grandchildren. They willingly faced death for the sake of obeying God’s calling to bring the gospel to the Auca people, a tribe known for their violence toward outsiders. Since the first missionary to enter Auca territory, a Jesuit priest, was murdered in 1667, a long history of death
by spearing had greeted oil company employees, rubber hunters and the early Spanish conquistadors who had ventured there.

Upon graduating from Wheaton College and declaring his plans to bring the gospel to the Auca Indians, Jim Elliot was once asked if he was foolhardy in embarking on such an undertaking; he replied: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”.

Bibliography
Hartzell, Char M., The Triumph of Martyrdom. Wheaton Alumni, Spring 1996

Saint, Steve., The Ecuador Martyrs: Did They Have to Die? Christianity Today, September
16, 1996, 26