Who is Elisabeth Elliot?
Elisabeth Elliot (née Howard) was a Christian speaker, author, and missionary who lived from December 21, 1926, until June 15, 2015. While trying to establish missionary contact with the Auca people (now known as Huaorani; alternatively translated as Waorani or Waodani) of eastern Ecuador, her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956. Later, she served as a missionary to the tribal members that murdered her husband for two years. She spent several years in South America before coming back to the United States, where she authored more than twenty books and gained widespread recognition as a lecturer and author. Long into her sixties, Elliot continued to travel the nation, sharing her expertise and experiences.
Early Life
Born Elisabeth Howard on December 21, 1926, in Brussels, Belgium, Elisabeth Elliot was raised by her missionary parents, four brothers, and a sister. David and Thomas Howard, Elisabeth’s brothers, are also writers.
When she was a few months old, her family relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. She resided in Moorestown, New Jersey, and Franconia, New Hampshire, in addition to Philadelphia. At Wheaton College, she studied Classical Greek because she thought it would be the most useful instrument for her career as a translator of the Bible’s New Testament into an unidentified language.
She first met Jim Elliot at Wheaton. At the Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta, Canada, where a campus prayer chapel was eventually built in her honor, Elisabeth finished a year of specialized post-graduate study prior to their marriage. To work with the Tsáchila, Jim Elliot and Elisabeth Howard traveled to Ecuador separately.
Career
The two eventually were married in Quito in 1953, and she later joined him in his work with the Quichua (or Quechua) Indians. Jim, her husband, and four of his missionary buddies were speared to death in January 1956 while trying to get in touch with the Huaorani tribe. When her father was murdered, their daughter Valerie, who was born on February 27, 1955, was ten months old. For two more years, Elisabeth kept up her work with the Quichua.
Elisabeth and sister missionary Rachel Saint learned the Huao language from two Huaorani women who lived among the Quichua, one of them was named Dayuma. Dayuma made it possible for the missionaries to get in touch with the Huaorani after her return. Along with Rachel Saint and her three-year-old daughter Valerie, Elisabeth moved in with the Huaorani in October 1958.
Elisabeth was given the ‘woodpecker’ Huao tribe name Gikari by the Auca/Huaorani. After that, she went back to work with the Quichua until 1963, when she and Valerie left for the United States (Franconia, New Hampshire).
Addison Leitch, a theologian at Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, was Elisabeth’s husband in 1969. Together with her second husband, she joined the Episcopal Church (United States). In 1973, Leitch passed away. She joined Gordon-Conwell’s faculty as an adjunct professor in the fall of 1974, where she taught the well-liked course “Christian Expression” for a number of years.
She wed hospital chaplain Lars Gren in 1977. Later, the Grens traveled and worked together.
She was one of the style consultants for the New International Version of the Bible (NIV) committee in the middle of the 1970s. She is listed as a contributor to the NIV.
In 1981, Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, named Elisabeth its writer-in-residence.
Elisabeth appeared on Gateway to Joy, a daily radio show run by the Good News Broadcasting Association in Lincoln, Nebraska, from 1988 until 2001. She would nearly always begin the show by saying, “The Bible says, ‘You are loved with an everlasting love,’ and underneath are the everlasting arms.'” This is Elisabeth Elliot, your friend. Reruns of the show are available on the Bible Broadcasting Network now.
Later Life and Death
She and her third husband ceased touring in their later years, but they remained in contact with the public via their website and email.
On June 15, 2015, Elisabeth Elliot passed away in Magnolia, Massachusetts, at the age of 88. The son of Nate Saint, who was killed with Elliot’s first husband, Steve Saint, said on Facebook shortly after her passing that she had finally overcome “the loss of her mind to dementia” and “her ten year battle with the disease which robbed her of her greatest gift.” In Hamilton, Massachusetts, she was laid to rest in Hamilton Cemetery. Eight grandkids, a daughter named Valerie Elliot Shepard, her third husband Lars Gren, and Valerie’s husband Walter survived her.
Elisabeth Elliot Books
- Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot, 1958.
- Through Gates of Splendor, 1957.
- These Strange Ashes, 1975.
- Quest for Love, 1996.
- The Savage My Kinsman, 1961.
- Furnace of the Lord: Reflections on the Redemption of The Holy City, 1969.
- Twelve Baskets of Crumbs, 1977.
- Let Me Be a Woman, 1977.
- The Journals of Jim Elliot, 1978.
- Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under God’s Control, 1984.
- Discipline: The Glad Surrender, 1982.
- Love Has a Price Tag.
- The Mark of a Man, 1981.
- Keep a Quiet Heart.
- A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael, 1987.
- A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship Between God’s Mercy and Our Pain, 1990.
- The Path of Loneliness: Finding Your Way Through the Wilderness to God, 2001.
- No Graven Image, 1966.
- Secure in the Everlasting Arms.
- The Music of His Promises: Listening to God with Love, Trust, and Obedience.
- The Shaping of a Christian Family, 1992.
- God’s Guidance: A Slow and Certain Light, 1976.
- Taking Flight: Wisdom for Your Journey.
- Be Still My Soul.
- Suffering Is Never For Nothing.
Representations of Elizabeth Elliot
- Bridge of Blood: Jim Elliot Takes Christ to the Aucas was initially presented at Tennessee Temple University in 1973 as a reader’s theater play.
- Love Above All, a musical based on the tale of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, was performed in Singapore’s Victoria Concert Hall in 2003. A second performance of this musical took place in 2007 at Singapore’s University Cultural Centre.
- Actress Beth Bailey played her in the 2006 movie End of the Spear.
- Elzabeth Elliot makes an appearance as herself in the 2002 documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor. (A number of Indians, the other wives of the missionaries who were killed, and others also show up.)
- The Governor General’s Award was given to Canadian novelist Joan Thomas in 2019 for her dramatized version of the Elisabeth Elliot story, Five Wives.
