I started reading this book by Elisabeth Elliot yesterday and couldnt get away from it until I had finished it. I met Jim, Nate, Roger, Ed and Pete, who lived not long ago just around half a century ago.
The end of 1955 brought them together to reach the killer tribe of the Aucas in Ecuador. And after weeks of efforts including flying over their territory daily, dropping gifts, shouting out friendly slogans in the native language they had memorized earlier until their throats were soar, they dared to try and make physical contact with them.
Primitive ignorance caused the Aucas to doubt their intentions and in the end[?], all the five men were killed in an ambush.
It moved me to the core to meet these young guys not much older to me who braved and risked it all to see the Kingdom advance, who gave it all not just in words but in their actions, who caused their own lives to be living sacrifices to the glory of God. They were common men, with their own problems, flaws and doubts but what they shared was the zeal to scale mountains for God, mountains and terrains that no one had dared to scale before. Oh that the same zeal would burn in each of our hearts!!
Before they left on January 3, 1956, they sang the following lines
"We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender,
Thine is the battle, Thine shall be the praise
When passing through the gates of pearly splendour
Victors, we rest with Thee through endless days."
- 'Through Gates of Splendour', Elisabeth Elliot, Living Books, Illinois, pg. 179.
1 comment:
How brave those men were, what faith they must have had to literally die for the Gospel,
I pray the Spirit of God would burn in our hearts to take each opportunity to share the good news, I thank God for our freedom to express our very precious faith, God Bless you.
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