It explores her thoughts and reactions to the tragic loss of her husband Jim and four other men at the hands of the Waodäni, and her decision to remain in Ecuador and live with the tribe. It chronicles her marriage to Jim Elliot and the attempts they and their fellow missionaries made to befriend the isolated Waodäni tribe. The museum’s research also led to the development of an exhibition focused on Elisabeth’s life and her motivations for leaving the United States in pursuit of Christian missions in the Amazonian jungles of Ecuador. Eventually, more than 900 items will be cataloged and documented on this site. Though many of these items can be viewed now on our Collections page, at the end of March, a themed collection page will launch for the Elisabeth Elliot Collection at Museum of the Bible. Over the next few years, Museum of the Bible’s team of curators and registrars researched and documented the collection. So in 2019, representatives for Elliot’s family reached out to Wheaton College, her alma mater, and Museum of the Bible with an offer to donate many of her personal effects and collections of objects. The family wished for her legacy to live on.

It was not only a personal loss, but one that affected many who had benefitted from years of engagement through her books, lectures, and radio program. When Elisabeth Elliot died in 2015, her family and widowed husband mourned. Her best-selling book, Through Gates of Splendor, began a writing and speaking career that lasted four decades.įigure 2: Elisabeth Elliot in her home office in Magnolia, Massachusetts, ca. She eventually returned to the United States, becoming an active and vocal advocate for the gospel, for missions, for families, and for women. In the years that followed, Elliot created a writing system for the Waodäni language, advocated for their education, and paved the way for a New Testament translation finished in 1992. This remarkable story rippled across the globe, inspiring millions to serve God through missions.įigure 1: Elisabeth Elliot teaching in Ecuador with Valerie hugging her legs, ca. Her choice to forgive, rather than retaliate, sparked a change in the Waodäni, who left behind a cycle of violence to embrace a life of love.

In 1958, Christian missionary Elisabeth Elliot returned to the Ecuadorian rainforest to live with the Waodäni, the tribe who had killed her husband only two years earlier.

Gates of splendor elisabeth elliot