Title: Made for the Journey: One Missionary's First Year in the Jungles of Ecuador by Elisabeth Elliot
Book Beginnings quote:
It is unsettling to me now to know that people who are making a tour of South America can take a short, easy side trip and see the Colorados. They can go in a taxi from the city of Quito to Santo Domingo de los Colorodos in a few hours and stay in a nice hotel and have a look at the real Colorodo Indian any day of the week. The Indians will even dance for you, I am told, or play their wonderful bamboo marimbas. This tells me that everything has changed.
Friday56 quote:
The Protestant mission work in San Miguel had been set in motion by an Englishman named Wilfred Tidmarch. He was working with Quichua Indians in the eastern part of Ecuador, known as the Oriente, but visited San Miguel, saw the need for evangelizing the Colorodos, and bought property for a mission station. When ET and his wife arrived in Ecuador, Dr. Tidmarch persuaded them and Doreen to settle in San Miguel. No Colorodo lived there, or in any village for that matter, for it was their custom to live separately even from one another, scattered here and there as families throughout the forest. San Miguel was as close as a white man could get.
Summary: In her first year as a missionary, Elisabeth Elliot lived on a compound with two other missionary women, ministering to the women of the Colorodo tribe in Ecuador. Elliott recieved a bit of training by Wycliff Bible Translators before she left for her mission to learn the language of the Colorodo people and then give that language an alphabet, ultimately setting the stage to translate the Bible into a language the people there could understand. She was woefully unprepared for the task ahead of her but she worked diligently at making forays into the language of the Colorodo and living a life removed a most human comforts. "In Made for the Journey, Elliot captures the mysteries and stark realities surrounding the colorful and primitive world in which she ministered. More than just a recounting of her early days, this is a beautifully crafted and deeply personal reflection on the important questions of life and a remarkable testimony to authentic Christian obedience to God."
Review: I just returned from a trip to Ecuador. My sister, who organized a lot of the details for the trip, found Made for the Journey and read it before leaving home then passed it on to me to read during the trip. We (two of my siblings, my husband, and one brother-in-law) were in Ecuador on a personal mission: to learn more about the life of our paternal grandfather who led a would-be missionary down the Amazon River on a quest to learn about the indigenous people who lived along the way. Granddad organized this trip 100 years ago and it is a miracle that he and the others even survived it, which took four months to complete. Our mission was to walk where he walked, to look at vistas Granddad would have seen, to experience Ecuador as he might have experienced it. It was an adventure and a trip for the memory books, for sure! Reading Made for the Journey at the same time as I was making a journey in Ecuador myself really opened my eyes as to what my granddad may have experienced with the people he met along the way.
The book itself was a revelation. First off just to set the record straight, I believe it is so presumptive for people to assume that other people need to be saved from their own beliefs and traditions. It makes my blood boil to even think of it. On the other hand I do believe in good works and helping a civilization come up with an alphabet so they can have a written language does seem like a worthy task. Elisabeth set off with a rather pious opinion of her task as we see from this quote from page 70,
I was here to help and these people would not be helped. I had no doubt that God was on my side, and this a a secret satisfaction. Someday God and I would show these proud, independent Indians that we had plans for them, plans that they would not ultimately succeed in thwarting.
Fortunately, Elisabeth learned to be more patient and less judgmental as her year among the Colorodo people progressed. In fact, at the end of the year, she learned much more about herself and saw that her efforts largely came to nothing, at least according to what she had expected. She calls that year, 1952-53, the year where she learned four kindergarten lessons. These were lessons, deep blows really, that prepared her for her life ahead. I found Made for the Journey to be an easy-to-read and insightful book, full of surprises. And what about the Colorodo people? Well, we see from the quote on the first page, they have been brought into the 20th and 21st Century by the work of other people. Hopefully they are still living lives as proud, independent people.
Want to know more about Elisabeth Elliott? I did, so I checked out her biography page to learn more. Oddly this book, Made for the Journey, is not listed among the many writings of Elisabeth Elliot.
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