Jim Elliot - Leaving For Ecuador

Leaving For Ecuador

While at Camp Wycliffe, Elliot practiced the skills necessary for writing down a language for the first time by working with a former missionary to the Quechua people. The missionary told him of the Waodani – also called the "Auca", the Quichua word for savage – a group of Ecuadorian indigenous people considered violent and dangerous to outsiders. Elliot remained unsure about whether to go to Ecuador or India until July. His parents and friends wondered if he might instead be more effective in youth ministry in the United States, but considering the home church "well-fed", he felt that international missions should take precedence.

After the completion of his linguistic studies, Elliot applied for a passport and began to make plans with his friend Bill Cathers to leave for Ecuador. However, two months later Cathers informed him that he planned to marry, making it impossible for him to accompany Elliot as they had planned. Instead, Elliot spent the winter and spring of 1951 working with his friend Ed McCully in Chester, Illinois, running a radio program, preaching in prisons, holding evangelistic rallies, and teaching Sunday School.

McCully married later that summer, forcing Elliot to look elsewhere for an unmarried man with whom he could begin working in Ecuador. That man turned out to be Pete Fleming, a graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in philosophy. He corresponded frequently with Elliot, and by September he was convinced of his calling to Ecuador. In the meantime, Elliot visited friends on the east coast, including Elisabeth. In his journal he expressed hope that they would be able to be married, but at the same time felt that he was called to go to Ecuador without her. Elliot returned to Portland in November and began to prepare to leave the country.