Elisabeth Elliot - Made for the Journey: One Missionarys First Year in the Jungles of Ecuador

1998 by Elisabeth Elliot

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Repackaged edition published in 2018

Previously published as These Strange Ashes by Servant Publications in 1998 and Revell Books in 2004

Ebook edition created 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-3461-9

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

But These Strange Ashes, Lord from Meal in a Barrel by Amy Carmichael is used by permission of the Dohnavur Fellowship, London. Even as a Weaned Child from Toward Jerusalem by Amy Carmichael is used by permission of Christian Literature Crusade, Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania, and S.P.C.K., London.

Authors note: The names of some of the missionaries in this story have been changed.

For more information on Elisabeth Elliot and her books, please visit her website at www.elisabethelliot.org.

For my sister Ginny
(Virginia Howard deVries)
with love

Contents

Preface

F rom time to time someone asks me which I think is my best book. I reply that it is a little like asking a mother which of her children she prefers. Each one comes at fairly high cost. One hopes that she has learned something through the production of each, but I doubt that either mothers or authors are the best judges of what they produce. Nevertheless, I confess to feeling a certain tenderness for this book. It tells the story of my earliest lessons in the sovereignty of Godthree stunning ones, assigned to me in the first year as a jungle missionary. One of these lessons was solely an act of God. The other two were acts of lawbreakers. In all three, however, God let me hear His clear word: Trust Me .

Many times since that year in San Miguel de los Colorados the lesson has had to be repeated. It is not natural for me to trust God. It is my natural inclination to worry, to assume burdens never intended for me, to give way to discouragement and even fear. In speaking about Gods love and sovereign care over us, I am often asked how we are to accept, as within the context of a loving Fathers will, the evil that befalls us because of the sins of others. Is God the author of sin? Did He inspire the murder and theft that tried my faith as a new missionary?

The questions arise again and again, in my contexts, as people tell me of accidents to loved ones, of divorces, handicapped children, abusive husbands, economic disasters, betrayed trust, death. Bad things happen, and so often they happen to good people. Shall we assume we are at the mercy of mere chance, or shall we cling to the conviction that God is still omnipotent as well as all-loving? But why did an omnipotent Creator place in His universe creatures with the will to defy Him? Why did He give them in the first place freedom of will, power to choose, when surely He knew that their choices would be evil? Why is the power of causality granted to us, when we make each other suffer in consequence? The power to exercise the will has been delegated. It was delegated to us and God will not usurp it.

Most of the time we like the idea of our own freedom. There are times when we do not at all like the idea of the freedom of others. If we suffer because of their freedom, let us remember that they suffer because of ours. There is something else to remember also: Christ, who willed our freedom, suffered for all of us. Take a long look at what happened at Calvary. The agony there was of the just for the unjust. Why? To bring us to God. Jesus, even in the hands of His captors, was aware that the hour of darkness had its limits, set by His Father. Everything that happened to Him was part of the appointed way , yet He said, Alas for that man by whom he is betrayed. The Son of God, helpless in the hands of wicked humans. What a strange thing. What a mystery Christians proclaim in their faith.

But its hard to see how that mystery makes much difference when we ourselves are in the pit. Then the why comes from a heart choked with disbelief. We look at the chaos and the destruction. We dont look with much clarity at God. But His attention has not wandered. The Everlasting Arms have not let go their hold.

When Elishas servant went out early in the morning, he saw a force with horses and chariots surrounding the city.

Oh master, he said, which way are we to turn? Elisha answered, Do not be afraid, for those who are on our side are more than those on theirs. Elisha then prayed, asking the Lord to open his servants eyes. The Lord opened his eyes, and the servant saw the hills covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

The horses and chariots that the servant had first seen were real enough. He had good reason to fear, if that was all there was. They had no place to turn, it seemed. But for every visible reason for terror, there was an invisible and immensely more powerful reason for trust.

Those fiery horses and chariots are still doing Gods bidding. Still the Lord speaks that word to us wherever we are, whatever the forces that oppose us: Trust Me. Never mind the answers to the whys just nowthose are Mine. Trust Me.

Over forty years have passed since this story took place. Nearly every time I have told it and tried to explain what I think God wanted to teach me in it of absolute commitment and trust, someone has asked, But why did God let it happen? Someday they and I will be satisfied with His answer. Of one thing I am perfectly sure: Gods story never ends with ashes.

Foreword

W hen asked to name the people who have played a vital role in shaping our Christian faith, most of us list those who know us intimatelyfamily members, best friends, pastors, teachers, professors, or coaches. And while my parents and my husband, Rick, strongly influenced the person I am today, no one has had a greater impact on my spiritual development than Elisabeth Elliot, a woman I briefly met one time.

Since I was much younger than Elisabeth, many of the pivotal moments of her lifeincluding the experiences in Made for the Journey and the martyrdom of her first husband, Jimtook place before I was born or shortly thereafter. As a very small child, I recall hearing vague references to five young missionaries killed by the Waodani (Auca) Indians of southern Ecuador, but I didnt read her telling of these events in Through Gates of Splendor until I was a freshman in college.

But from the moment I began to read, my heart was captivated. I was challenged by the go-for-broke faith that propelled her and her friends to leave all that was familiar, comfortable, and safe for the unfamiliar, frequently uncomfortable, and definitely unsafe life as missionaries to an unreached people group on another continent.

After college, Elisabeth responded to Gods call on her life and moved to South America to learn the language of the Colorado Indians, a tribe living in the remote jungles of Ecuador, so that eventually they could hear the good news of the gospel in words that rang true in their hearts.

Her life in the jungle was light-years away from our hightech, super-connected world of electronic devices. Her home for nearly a year, Santo Domingo de los Colorados, was approachable only by a days bus trip through the mountains, followed by hours on horseback over steep mountain trails, through muddy ravines, ditches, and rivers. Daily life was sustained by generators; water pulled from a river used as a washing machine, toilet, and drinking source; butane lights and spirit lamps; letters from home delivered sporadically or even stolen out of mailbags; and a diet consisting of eggs, boiled milk, tea, plantains, manioc, and occasionally a chunk of pork. Local wildlifesnakes, cockroaches, bats, mosquitoes, birds, and monkeysseemed both prehistorically large and plentiful. Her wardrobe in the heat and humidity consisted mostly of thin cotton dresses and tennis shoes.