Elisabeth Elliot: An Authentic Hero (Episode 1)

i want to introduce you to ellen who is the author and ellen welcome to revive our hearts it's such a joy to have you here to talk about this story it's fun to be with you nancy thank you and i've known of you for years because you and my husband have known each other for a lot of years you've worked together in a lot of publishing projects i knew you back when you were ellen santilli and you were working for prison fellowship or at least that's a name you wrote under some you worked with chuck coulson over a lot of years and if you've seen a book with chuck coulson's name on it it's probably had ellen santilli vaughan on it as well you've written over 23 books you're a best-selling new york times bestseller author and when i knew that we were talking about a biography of elizabeth elliott coming to be you were the person i thought wouldn't it be great if ellen vaughn could write this biography you're a great storyteller you're a great researcher you're a beautiful writer and i'm just so thrilled that you've done all the hard work to bring us this story and you're going to share with us some things that are new even to elizabeth elliott aficionados but also we have a lot of listeners who may not know who elizabeth elliott even is or was and we want to introduce a new generation of listeners and readers to the life of this woman because her message is timeless and you've dug deep into the early chapters of her life and the things there that you're going to bring to light that people haven't been aware of before so thank you for taking this journey and taking us on a journey we're very excited about it well thank you thank you nancy it was a great honor to write this book and i grew up knowing who elizabeth elliot was i read some of her books i heard her speak at my church and other venues in the washington dc area and i i really admired elizabeth elliott i thought oh my goodness here's this woman who is a renowned missionary who lost her husband to violence who went and lived among the tribal people who killed her husband who does that and then went on to write two dozen books and really become a spokesperson in the second half of the 20th century for evangelicals at a time when there weren't that many uh women's voices in that arena and she was a great leader so i admired her but i found her a little bit intimidating and i wasn't sure i liked her very much you're not the only woman who's ever felt that way evidently and so when i was approached by her daughter and her best friend about the possibility of writing the authorized biography i was thrilled because i here was a person who's whose thinking was so robust and her faith was so counter cultural and i was anxious to find to get to know her better and i was given all of her journals now many people are familiar with elizabeth elliot's books and we know and love those volumes but to read the the story behind the story the inside scoop what was she really feeling as she was going through so many incredibly dramatic losses and and delightful times and adventures in the jungle and everything in between and to read those pages was an incredible journey for me to get inside not just her her her brain which was very formidable incredibly gifted intellectual woman but also to get inside her spirit and to see the the to have a sense of the poignancy of what she was going through and it wasn't all just beautiful painting in those journals there are very realistic human fears and wrestlings and things she grappled with that we didn't always know because she always seemed so poised and put together and had just the right words for just the right occasion she did have a sense of humor we heard that at times in her speaking and i can still hear her mimicking accents and yeah but the the inner parts of her heart where she wrestled with god and with some of the experiences in her life more of that comes out in her journals and because you've had access to those journals more of that is found in this book than even those of us who knew and loved elizabeth elliott we're probably aware of right right and that's why this volume really focuses on her early years and on the whole the becoming because in the early years of our lives and our journey with jesus we're all becoming and that's true as we grow older and as we're godly old ladies one day right but um i think that maybe people who admired elizabeth elliot but are a little bit put off by her as i used to be will enjoy seeing the processes god used in her life to really um mold her into a woman who then had quite a platform yes to speak around the world 300 days a year to to influence lives through radio through books uh in a way that has has left quite a legacy for generations and for people our age we're well familiar with elizabeth elliott and i gather your listeners are well she's well loved at revenge but then you have those in the younger generation who are saying elizabeth who i guess you had that experience as you were talking with people about the book you were working on right right so i go to wheaton college which is her alma mater as um jim elliott went there and and her library is housed there right right and there's elliott hall there's a dormitory there named after jim and i would uh ask students do you know elizabeth elliott and they would say no what year is she and so even at that place among people who are in their their 20s elizabeth elliot maybe her name is known maybe jim elliott is known oh yeah he's the guy who got speared but there is a story i think for millennials and for younger generations that's in this book becoming elizabeth elliott that is is a rich story to be discovered because elizabeth elliott was an authentic hero she was a person who didn't just adhere to sort of a cultural christianity this is what we do because it's expected and we check off all the boxes but part of her journey of loss and heartbreak and ministry radical ministry among indigenous people in the amazonian jungle part of that journey was about getting to know who is jesus really and what is his call in my life and how do i obey that no matter what and i think that's a kind of robust message a robust way of living that very much would appeal to people who have never heard of elizabeth elliot and she wasn't afraid to challenge the current thinking the status quo to rocks and boats right she was courageous and would say things that maybe many others weren't saying but she would do it in a way that made you think that brought you along and you might be mad at it at first but then you'd find yourself often saying wow that makes a lot of sense true and one thing i tried to do in this book was give the reader an experience i wanted to tell a story a lot of elizabeth's books that we all know and love are rather didactic in nature and i wanted this to be an unfolding story for the reader that they would be able to travel along in the jungle and for me part of the the pleasure really of uh doing this book was going deep into the amazon jungle and living briefly among the wawa dhani the tribal people with whom elizabeth elliot lived the tribal people who killed jim elliott and his four colleagues so many years ago back in 1956 and i found that experience almost like time travel first of all i have to say that i am not necessarily a uh nature uh traveler and so not a camper uh i you know camping is good as long as there a toilet is involved and you have electricity and neither of those were present deep in the jungle i'm telling you and so to be among the wow dani and to be sleeping in a hammock and wearing these uh knee-high rubber boots so you wouldn't get uh gnawed upon by creatures and and having to sleep with something over your head so the vampire bats wouldn't nibble let your at your head in the night and to use the most beautiful outhouse in the amazon and to the hunters would go out each day and they would bring back a monkey or a wild pig and we would all feast together after it had been roasted over the fire and there was a great sense of community with the waodhani who are themselves a few generations removed from those who killed the missionaries and one of the men who killed the missionaries that day so long ago back in 1956 was still living minkai he would have been in his 90s right yes no one knows how old he was and he uh was is a brother who loved christ and even though we did not speak the same language we had such a connection you sometimes feel with people where you know the spirit draws you together even though you are so so different and to sit with minkai while he took a long long piece of hard wood and carved a spear with a knife sharp machete he's carving the spear carving the spear sharpening its point to give to me as a gift and i had this time travel moment of feeling like oh my goodness all those years before minkai sitting and sharpening a spear to kill the missionaries and the miracle of what god does in human lives how did menkai come to know jesus how did he come to change his ways really through the most unlikely circumstances where two women one of whom was elizabeth elliot and a little girl elizabeth's daughter valerie three years old going into the jungle and living with the tribal people who had killed their loved ones and demonstrating there is another way to live the power of christ to forgive can change lives and change generations and for me one of the sweetest parts of writing this book was to go and and to be in the amazon jungle and to see with a sense of how god works in human time it's according to his eternal precepts but also he is doing things that none of us can even imagine because we just dwell here in real time and things that elizabeth herself couldn't see back then in fact we'll talk about this later in this series but in some ways elizabeth's ministry there in the jungle by modern standards would have been considered a colossal failure correct not success as we measure success today but she learned a different measurement of success that we need to learn as we think about what god has called us to do and and what our world considers brilliant or capable or accomplished isn't always what furthers the kingdom of god sometimes it's it's the things that look like they don't work or they don't come together or they don't make sense the the conundrums to which there are no easy answers it's through these things that god sometimes does his longest term and sweetest work and elizabeth walked through a journey of experiencing and learning that herself yes yes and so i was surprised myself as i again as i delved into those journals as i saw the story inside the story because i think in evangelicalism sometimes the story of of jim elliott and nate saint and ed mccully and roger udarian and pete fleming and their martyrdom at the hands of this indigenous people has been presented almost as a a glorious triumph and then the whole tribe came to christ and there were god's work is is in much more subtle and majestic and ways than we can understand really and there were a lot of broken pieces and parts of that whole story and we'll talk about some of those uh but things that just seemed counterproductive and like the kingdom of god is coming through this right but yes it does through broken flawed insecure individuals god sends his spirit and does his work and and you don't see till eternity really the whole package the story that god is writing and is unfolding and at their points when we have to be content and satisfied with mystery and not understanding and elizabeth we knew there were hard things in her life but it wasn't just the martyrdom of her first husband she was actually twice a widow and we'll talk about that later but it was in some of the behind the scenes stories that come out through these journals which by the way you have a copy of one of the journals not a copy this is one of the actual journals right here i know that handwriting i would know it anywhere well and i have to tell you when you were just talking it brought to mind in my experience in going through these journals nancy and i it was like elizabeth's life was unfolding for me in in real time page by page by page and i knew what was coming right and she did she didn't she didn't and just like we don't yes in the story that god is writing in our lives right now yeah and so the scripture that really came to mind for me is in psalm 139 and it's where the psalmist is talking about how uh god formed us in our mother's wombs we we know this great psalm and the section that talks about and all of the days that were ordained for me we're all known to you o lord before even a one of them came to be yes and for me i was going through some rough waters myself and we'll talk about that later as i read these journals and i thought oh lord elizabeth couldn't see that all of these days ordained for her were planned by god even as she lived them and that transferred to me i realized they were going to become part of your story yes exactly and so my days as they unfold if they feel futile if they feel tragic if they feel whatever the how the days feel is not the test of what god is doing and i saw that would you just say that again how the days feel is not the test of what god is doing that's a similar point to what you said earlier we are so conditioned by our north american culture to think of things in terms of success and to check things off and how did that go what were the numbers what were the results yeah and see the end of the project yes yes how did my day go can i check off that i i felt victorious and happy and fulfilled this day whatever it is and i think those are enculturations that satan would love to use to trip us up and that really impede us from having a freedom in christ that knows oh lord if this day in my journal is a mess a weeping mess it is not wasted in your economy and you are doing things in eternity that i cannot see and i don't get it and my heart hurts and this is awful but you are with me and sometimes that horrible weeping mess is because of circumstances over which we have no control yes as elizabeth had many of those in her life and sometimes it's just our own brokenness and sinfulness and we you know elizabeth elliot is iconic in the christian world and so we tend to just have this very beautiful no she was always mature she was always godly she always knew the right answer but what you see in these journals is a woman who was very frail who knew her own sinfulness who sometimes had responses that were not something she would have been proud of in fact you talk about how she went back years later and saw some of the things earlier in her journals and said did i write that right but she was becoming a woman of god right and those of us who follow can see that we get to see the story completed not completed as it is in eternity but completed in that her faithfulness yielded fruit that she never could have dreamed of and even her faithfulness when she didn't feel faithful right or when she was grappling with rogue emotions [Music] there's something endearing to me that makes her more approachable people approachable was not a word people used about elizabeth elliott uh intimidating was maybe the the word you would have thought of severe uh but when you read the back story here you realize that here's a woman who had feet of clay just like we do and who knew her own bents and inclinations to worry to be severe and she she let god surface those in her life many times through these hard circumstances and she let him sanctify her and so the elizabeth elliot we came to know and love in her later years mostly through her writings and her radio ministry gateway to joy was not this ready-made saint correct she was developing she was becoming this woman of god eve and which gives me hope when i see the frailties and the failures of my own heart and there are times ellen when i think if the women who love this ministry could see me now if they could see what i'm thinking if they could see what i'm feeling if they could know my the things that make the lord sad and that make me sad about my own failures they wouldn't pay any attention to what i say they wouldn't be interested in following this ministry but i love the fact that we're in this journey together and that god is taking broken needy weak flawed people who are willing to offer themselves up to him and he makes he makes us like jesus he's in the process of transfiguring us transforming us and we see that and elizabeth in a way that i think is really encouraging yes and i think one thing that is greatly needed in all of our uh communities of faith is a real transparency yes we don't need to be people who are coming together like we've got it all together and i think when i saw an in elizabeth's younger journals i felt for her and one thing that i wish that she had had if i may say that is close friends with whom she could be vulnerable in her younger years she really struggled with not wanting to show emotions and i think that all of us my sense about you and the community of people who are part of revive our hearts is a real focus on the fellowship of christian sisters yes that that we can come together and not necessarily exhort one another with what one should be doing but just to be able to grieve together or to say i have been struggling with this ugly response to my husband in certain situations or i am feel hopeless about this or whatever the emotions are that there be a freedom to say this this is how we are and jesus who draws near to us who comforts us in our afflictions who cares for us not because of how well we perform but because of his own grace and love that he draws near and so if anything in these journals there'd be times where elizabeth would be writing along in her beautiful flowing handwriting and saying oh lord help me i am ridiculous and i as the biographer reading along i feel comforted like oh good she was ridiculous too well we're gonna delve into some of these early years of elizabeth elliot's life as we talk about what you learned in writing this biography becoming elizabeth elliott you've already encouraged me and there's lots more to learn even for those of us who thought we knew a lot about elizabeth elliot and even more so for those who are not familiar with her life i hope all of our listeners will get a copy of becoming elizabeth elliott it's beautifully written it's compelling writing and it really spoke to me in so many personal ways and we'll talk about some of those over the next several days

Channel: Revive Our Hearts

Views: 17,061

Keywords: Elisabeth Elliot, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, Christian Women, Jim Elliot, Revive Our Hearts, Godly Womanhood, Godly Woman, Christianity, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Id: txYmbu8O7co

Length: 21min 53sec (1313 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 15 2020