We gladly publish this tribute, written by Valerie Elliot Shepard.
Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, my parents, were two individuals dedicated to being obedient to God, and to bringing the Gospel to unreached people. When they were at Wheaton College, both majoring in Greek, they began studying together. They realized that they shared a dedication to be students of the Word, something learned from committed Christian homes.
After college, they wrote to each other. As the courtship continued, their love for each other had to be placed on the altar; obedience to go to the field was more important than their natural desire to get married.
My father’s quote, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose,” became an often used challenge to bring people to a crossroads: either choose to follow Christ or their own way. Eventually God showed my father that it was His will that they marry, and they began work with the Quichua Indians of Ecuador. Two years and four months later my father was killed along with four other young missionaries, attempting to make friendly contact with a savage tribe in the Amazon. Because of these men’s love for these Indians, despite the danger, the Christian world was stunned by their witness, and thousands of men and women accepted the call into mission work.
Eventually God opened the way for my mother and me to go and live with the same Indians who had killed the men. Due to this experience, she was able to write over 30 books about obedience, trust, and suffering. Her speaking is a gift to the many Christians who heard her from 1973- 2003.
The last thing my father said to her, was, “Teach the believers, darling; we’ve got to teach the believers.”
