Yesterday I stumbled onto the story of Jim Eliott and his ministry to the huaorani tribe in Ecuador. I had always known the story, but never really looked into the details. I'm sure I'll miss some here, but I learned about one yesterday that I didn't know.
Eliott and 4 others began dropping gifts into the Huaorani camp from their airplane in 1955 and those gifts were reciprocated. On January of 1956 the 5 missionaries set up camp not far from the tribe. The tribe was a savage, violent people. And 5 days after they set up camp, all 5 missionaries were speared to death. The story of this is here. It's quite captivating.
I'm just going to take an angle here. It was Eliott that is often attributed the quote, "He is not fool that gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." The team had agreed to bring weapons to "scare" of any danger or attackers. The attack that killed them all was brought about by a lie. And during the attack, Eliott fired shots. One of those shots grazed a tribe member, eventually killing him. Though this is controversial.
What am I getting at. I don't really know. It sounded so good in my head. Even though they hadn't planned on using the gun on attackers, they did. Can I blame them? No. But it does ruin the story for me. In the very heat of the moment, Eliott valued his life above those that he was trying to reach.
I know...this is a longer conversation. But I'm on my ipad and don't really like writing on my ipad.
According to Johnny Cash, Mama said the pistol is the devils right hand. I believe Eliott can confirm this.
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