Written by Elisabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliott, a Christian missionary-martyr to the once-savage Auca Indians of Ecuador, Through Gates of Splendor recounts the stories of the 5 missionary-martyrs who responded to God's call for them to share His love to this particularly hostile tribe.
Here are two short videos that give you a good glimpse of their stories:
I wanted to share this particular passage because it struck me how precious God's call was to these young men, who really, were leaders of their age and had super bright futures awaiting them. They were gifted, driven, men of good character, talented, ambitious, and yet, simply because they experienced God's great love for them, they so joyfully and willingly laid down their lives and their futures for the chance to share this same love with people who had never before heard the name of Jesus. They really lived out Acts 20:24 and Philippians 3:8. Whew. So encouraging, yet so rebuking all at the same time...
I know it's long, but I do encourage you to read through it all :)
[p 41-43 of 'Through Gates of Splendor', emphasis added mine]
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"When Ed entered Wheaton College in the fall of 1945, it was not with the idea of becoming a foreign missionary. He chose business and economics as his major.
Six feet two inches tall, weighing one hundred and ninety pounds, he soon distinguished himself as star end on Wheaton's championship football team. His surprising speed for so big a man made him a track star as well. His track coach, the national champion miler, Gil Dodds, tells of an incident in Ed's senior year. Ten 440-yard men were in training for a special meet in Boston; from the ten, give would be picked to go. Ed wanted to go to Boston. So, in spite of the fact that he was a 100-220-yard man and had never run a 440 in his life, he asked if he could try out with the others. It was typical of Ed that he made the relay team by one-tenth of a second. 'He was always coming through with the impossible when the chips were down,' was Dodds' concluding comment.
Ed was at his best on the platform. His simple, direct approach to his audience enabled him, with no formal training whatever in public speaking, to win the 1949 championship in the National Hearst Oratorical Contest in San Francisco, a competition in which over ten thousand students had competed. His essay on Alexander Hamilton was nearly memorized by his classmates, who insisted on his reciting it at every class gathering. ...
Such was the spirit which Ed, senior class president, had generated. Of his election my brother Dave wrote: 'Ed was elected (or shouted in) without a contrary vote. I frankly doubt if anyone even entertained the idea of proposing anyone else for the position. It was a foregone and unanimously accepted conclusion.'
The following year Ed McCully, having turned his thinking toward the bar, entered law school at Marquette University. At the beginning of his second year there he took a job as hotel clerk at night, intending to spend the time studying. But God, who ordains men of His own choosing and moves in them to the accomplishment of His eternal purposes, had other plans. Ed told his Wheaton classmate Jim [Elliot] about it in a letter dated September 22, 1950:
'Since taking this job things have happened. I've been spending my free time studying the Word. Each night the Lord seemed to get hold of me a little more. Night before last I was reading in Nehemiah. I finished the book and read it through again. Here was a man who left everything as far as position was concerned to go do a job nobody else could handle. And because he went the whole remnant back in Jerusalem got right with the Lord. Obstacles and hindrances fell away and a great work was done. Jim, I couldn't get away from it. The Lord was dealing with me. On the way home yesterday morning I took a long walk and came to a decision which I know is of the Lord. In all honesty before the Lord I say that no one or nothing beyond Himself and the Word has bearing upon what I've decided to do. I have one desire now -- to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. Jim, I'm taking the Lord at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove his word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned. If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with our life hereafter. But if there is something to it, then everything else the Lord says must hold true likewise. Pray for me, Jim.
...
'Two days ago I was a law student. Today, I'm an untitled nobody. Thanks, Jim, for the intercession on my behalf. Don't let up. And brother, I'm really praying for you too as you're making preparation to leave. I only wish I were going with you.' "
[Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, Jim Elliot]
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I'm pretty starstruck given the descriptions of these five young men, but what's even more astonishing is how worthy GOD is, that he makes even bright young men like these forsake all else for the sake of following after Him. They consider their lives nothing in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus their Lord.
My prayer is that I would come to know this same Jesus the way they knew Him, seeing Him as SO valuable that I would forsake all else for the sake of knowing Him and making Him known.
