Ecuador's Jungle and The End of the Spear

Nebo river, just north of the Curaray river

Though I just returned from Ecuador with a thousand pictures and a hundred adventures, which I journaled about, my thoughts keep returning to Jim Elliot and the four other missionaries who gave their lives in the jungle of Ecuador. Last night, my husband and I watched the movie, The End of the Spear, and both of us were transfixed. Though I had seen it in movies theatres and gone on a missions trip to Ecuador, it was different this time. Having just returned from the jungle, within a hundred miles of the very place they died along the Curaray River, we were both struck by the story.
Jim Elliot and his team put so much time and energy into reaching the Auca Indians, which

Picture of the Auca Indians after they were "civilized'

means savage in Quechua. They lived in the jungle with their family, Jim used his talent to fly the perfect prop plane, the Piper A 40 for quick landings and short takeoffs. He devised a way to show that they wanted to make friends. He and his friend Nate Saint used a loudspeaker to talk to them and dropped cooking implements and food. They waved at them from the airplane and on the last day of their lives they even took one of them for a short ride in the “wood bee.” When confronted with spears they did not retaliate with guns, but willing laid down their lives. In his journal entry for October, Jim wrote “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Jungle we visited

He and the four others freely gave away their lives that fateful January day and their deaths prompted their wives to live with the and show love and compassion to the very ones who murdered their husbands. In return, the whole tribe was converted to Christianity and stopped killing of their enemies. While I was walking through the jungle, I was so struck by what the missionaries had done. To start off just living there back in the fifties must have been a real challenge. No neighbors, lots of bugs, few supplies, risk of medical threats to their life, no nearby stores, food and supplies shipped in, communication by short wave radio, not to mention the heat and the bugs! We were there for just three hours and though we slathered on bug spray, we got all bit up.


In watching the movie, I also saw how God orchestrated everything. One of the Wadani children grew up with the missionary family. I believe this was the catalyst that set the missionaries plan in action. This coupled with the fact that it was well known in Ecuador that the two tribes were killing each other off and time was of the essence, thrust Jim and his partners into taking risks not even the missionary board would approve of, but God’s ways are not our ways.

Our guide

The trip and the movie has me wondering, what does God want me to do with th rest of my 

life. I’m now retired and have time. I love to travel, to write and paint and I am blessed to be able to do these things. But I can’t help wonder what God’s greater purpose for my life is. I want to serve him wherever I am and be a witness of His love, but I believe there might be another plan God is bringing together. Until that time, I will take another piece of advice from Jim Elliot, “Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.” It’s the way I have lived my life, and   pray that what I have done is the will of God.