Jim Elliot

Jim Elliot , actually Philip James Elliot (born October 8, 1927 in Portland (Oregon) , † January 8, 1956 in Ecuador ), was an American evangelical missionary in Ecuador who was killed by Huaorani Indians.

Personal history

Jim Elliot was born the third of four children to Fred and Clara Elliot in Portland, on the west coast of the United States . His father was an evangelist and the family regularly attended church services in the local fraternity . This brought Jim Elliot into contact with missionaries at an early age and experienced a conversion as a child .

During his youth he was active in school theater and discovered his talent for lecturing and speaking. After high school, he began general studies at Wheaton College, Illinois , where he majored in Greek. At the same time he deepened his contacts in the mission, among other things as President of the Foreign Mission Fellowship , and gained first experience as an evangelist and preacher . After graduating in 1949, he became involved in the Portland church and was an evangelist. In 1952 he began his missionary work in Ecuador. In October 1953 he married Elisabeth Howard there , whom he had met at Wheaton College. In February 1955, the couple's only child, daughter Valerie, was born.

Activity as a missionary

In June 1950, Elliot spent several weeks in Norman, Oklahoma, on a linguistic training course at the Summer Institute of Linguistics . This stay was financed by Wycliff , a sister organization of SIL. Here Elliot met a missionary who had previously worked for the Kichwa in Ecuador and heard from him for the first time about the dreaded Huaorani who lived in the Ecuadorian lowlands (Oriente). Elliot saw it as a big task and got in touch with the British Dr. William Tidmarsh, from whom he knew that he was looking for a successor for his mission station in Ecuador to offer him his work as a missionary.

After a long period of preparation, Elliot reached Ecuador in February 1952, where he and other missionaries among the Kichwa Indians wanted to relocate to the existing but abandoned Shandia mission station. He did this together with Peter Fleming and Ed McCully on the official order of the Christian Missions in Many Lands (CMML) , which acted as the implementing organization for the Brethren movement and also financed this missionary activity. Their common concern was to proselytize the Huaorani Indians ( called Awka in Kichwa or Aucas = "barbarians" in Spanish ) to the Christian faith. However, these were considered hostile and shy of contact and had already been involved in disputes with employees of the Shell oil company in the past , in which several fatalities were already to be mourned. In order to get in touch with the Huaorani, Elliot and his friends flew over the area, dropped small gifts and sent short messages over a loudspeaker. The technical possibilities for this were provided by the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF). MAF is mainly active as a technical aid organization for evangelical mission societies worldwide. Nate Saint, a fellow Elliot at Wheaton College, was one of the pilots for that organization.

In early January 1956, direct contact attempts were made near the Curaray River . At one of the first meetings, however, Jim Elliot and Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint and Roger Youderian were killed by the Huaorani. Elliot's wife, Elisabeth, and Rachel Saint, Nate Saint's sister, continued their missionary work with the Huaorani on behalf of CMML and SIL. Their official concern was to complete the task of the Wycliff Bible translators in this area to translate the Bible into the Huaorani language.

However, after official allegations were made that Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot were more involved in the interests of the local oil companies (Shell) and against the interests of the Indians living there, SIL officially withdrew from this mission. Both women continued their work and carried out resettlement actions by the Huaorani.

As a result of the activities of the Wycliff translators, a translation of the New Testament into the Huaorani language appeared for the first time in 1992 .

Aftermath and Legacy

With a ten-page publication in the American magazine Life about the work and death of Jim Elliot and his colleagues, the public outside the USA became aware of the victims - some of whom were considered martyrs in Christian circles . Critics lamented the lack of utility from these sacrifices. Nonetheless, the account of the fate of the five men had a major impact on the evangelical youth of the United States in the late 1950s. Elliot's widow Elisabeth published In the Shadow of the Almighty - Notes of Jim Elliot in 1958 , which has been translated into several languages. Another biography of Jim Elliot was published in 2005 by JAARS, a subsidiary of SIL International .

Movie

In 2006, a film entitled End of the Spear was released in the USA about the missionary efforts of the Huaorani, from the first contacts and the death of Elliot to the return of Steve Saint, the son of the pilot Nate Saint, as a missionary and his reconciliation with Mincaye, his father's murderer. The German synchronization was published in 2009 under the title reconciled through death .

literature

• Elisabeth Elliot: In the shadow of the Almighty. Jim Elliot's Notes. R. Brockhaus, Wuppertal 1962 and others; CLV, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 978-3-417-24758-9
• Elisabeth Elliot: Embraced by God , Hänssler, Holzgerlingen 2004, ISBN 3-7751-4022-0
• Dave and Neta Jackson: Nate Saint - Company Auca . CLV, Bielefeld 1999, ISBN 978-3-89397-415-3
• Russell T. Hitt: The Jungle Flyer. Nate Saint - his life and testimony. Christian publishing house, Constance 1962; CLV, Bielefeld 2009, ISBN 978-3-86699-217-7
• Sue Shaw: Jim Elliot - Indian Mission. Hänssler, Neuhausen 1994, ISBN 3-7751-2043-2

Web links

Wikiquote: Jim Elliot  - Quotes

• Biography at hyperhistory.net
• Links and information about Jim Elliot
• from the Wheaton College Archives

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wængonguï nänö Apæ̈negaïnö, ante näni yewæ̈mongainta. New Testament in Waorani . 1st edition Sociedad Bíblica Internacional, 1992, 2nd edition Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. 2009.