Elisabeth Elliot

Elisabeth Elliot (née Howard; December 21, 1926 – June 15, 2015) was an American Christian missionary, author, and speaker. Her first husband, Jim Elliot, was killed in 1956 while attempting to make missionary contact with the Waorani people of eastern Ecuador. She later spent two years as a missionary to the tribe members who killed her husband. After living in South America for many years, she returned to the United States, wrote over 20 books, and became widely known as an author and a speaker. Elliot toured the country well into her seventies, sharing her knowledge and talking about her experience.

Early life and education

Elisabeth Elliot was born Elisabeth Howard in Brussels, Belgium, on December 21, 1926; her family included her missionary parents, four brothers, and one sister. Elisabeth's brothers, Thomas Howard and David Howard, are also authors.

Her family moved to the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, when she was a few months old. In addition to Philadelphia, she lived in Franconia, New Hampshire, and Moorestown, New Jersey. She studied Classical Greek at Wheaton College, believing that it was the best tool to help her with the calling of ultimately translating the New Testament of the Bible into an unknown language.

It was at Wheaton that she met Jim Elliot. She graduated from Wheaton College in 1948. Before their marriage, Elisabeth completed a year of specialized post-graduate studies at the Prairie Bible Institute in Alberta where a campus prayer chapel was later named in her honor. Jim Elliot and Elisabeth Howard individually went to Ecuador to work with the Tsáchila.

Career

After she married Elliot, she joined him in his work with the Quichua (or Quechua) indigenous people; the two married in Quito in 1953. In January 1956, her husband was speared to death along with four of his missionary friends while they were attempting to contact the Waorani people. Their daughter Valerie (born on February 27, 1955) was 10 months old when her father was killed. Elisabeth continued her work with the Quichua for two more years.

Two Waorani women living among the Quichua, including one named Dayuma, taught the Waorani language to Elisabeth and fellow missionary Rachel Saint. When Dayuma returned to the Waorani, she created an opening for contact by the missionaries. In October 1958, Elisabeth went to live with the Waorani with her three-year-old daughter Valerie and Saint. The Waorani gave her the tribal name Gikari, Wao for 'woodpecker'. She later returned to the Quichua and worked with them until 1963, when she and Valerie returned to Franconia, New Hampshire.

In 1969, Elisabeth married Addison Leitch, a professor of theology at Gordon–Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. She became a member of the Episcopal Church with her second husband. Leitch died in 1973. In the fall of 1974, she became an adjunct professor on the faculty of Gordon–Conwell and for several years taught a course entitled "Christian Expression". In 1977, she married Lars Gren, a hospital chaplain.

In the mid-1970s, she served as one of the stylistic consultants for the committee of the New International Version of the Bible (NIV). She appears on the NIV's list of contributors. In 1981, Elisabeth was appointed writer-in-residence at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. From 1988 to 2001, she could be heard on a daily radio program, Gateway to Joy, produced by the Good News Broadcasting Association of Lincoln, Nebraska. She almost always opened the program with the phrase "'You are loved with an everlasting love,' – that's what the Bible says – 'and underneath are the everlasting arms.' This is your friend, Elisabeth Elliot..." Today re-runs of the program may be heard over the Bible Broadcasting Network.

Later life and death

Elisabeth Elliot suffered from dementia during the last ten years of her life and stopped giving public presentations in 2004. She died in Magnolia, Massachusetts, on June 15, 2015. Shortly after her death, Steve Saint – the son of Nate Saint who was killed alongside Elliot's first husband – posted on Facebook about her final victory over "the loss of her mind to dementia" and "her ten year battle with the disease which robbed her of her greatest gift." She was interred at Hamilton Cemetery in Hamilton, Massachusetts.

Portrayals in media

In 1973, a reader's theater production of Bridge of Blood: Jim Elliot Takes Christ to the Aucas was first performed at Tennessee Temple University.

In 2003, a musical based on the story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, entitled Love Above All, was staged at the Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore. This musical was staged a second time, in 2007, at the University Cultural Centre, Singapore.

In Beyond the Gates of Splendor, a documentary film released in 2002, she appears as herself.

In the 2006 film End of the Spear, she is portrayed by actress Beth Bailey.

In 2019, Canadian author Joan Thomas won the Governor General's Award for her book Five Wives, a fictionalized account of Elisabeth Elliot's story.