The Story of five brave missionaires to the Waorani Tribe of Ecuador
On January 8, 1956, Jim Elliot and four other American missionaries, Ed McCully, Rodger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and their pilot Nate Saint, were brutally killed by a group of ten warriors from the Waorani tribe.
A few years prior, Jim Elliot had heard about this hostile and fierce Amazonian tribe in the Ecuadorian rainforest who had killed every outsider that ventured into their territory, and Jim had become convicted to attempt to reach them with the message of Jesus Christ’s love.
Initially the encounters with the Waorani tribe were positive. The missionaries flew over the Waorani territory for 3 months, dropping supplies and gifts in buckets, and, on January 3, 1956, landed on a river bank a few miles from the Waorani village. Upon landing, they enjoyed contact with three Waorani tribesmen, even taking one of them for a joy ride in the plane, but were speared to death a few days later by other members of the tribe who were not persuaded that the missionaries were not there to hurt them.
This could have been the end of the story but what was to follow almost beggers belief. Three years later, Elisabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliot, along with their three year old daughter, Nate Saint’s sister Rachel, and the three other missionaries’ wife’s, went to live with the Waorani tribe. This demonstration of love and forgiveness made a significant impact on the Waorani tribe with many of them becoming Christian. One of the Waorani tribesmen put it so poignantly when he said, “I have killed twelve people with my spear! But I did that when my heart was black. Now Jesus’ blood has washed my heart clean, so I don’t live like that anymore.”
Whilst Elisabeth Elliot and Rachel Saint have since passed away, Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, the pilot and missionary killed, still to this day works with the Waorani people, and has forged a particularly strong bond with Mincaye, one of his father’s killers.
The Waorani tribe are currently largely a Christian people and absolutely transformed by coming to know Jesus, made possible through the deaths of the five very brave missionaries and their demonstration of faith lived out, which can be summarised with a famous quote, and one of Jim Elliot’s favourites as recorded in his journal, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”.
