Beyond the Gates of Splendor - DVD

I just watched the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor and highly recommend it. For those of you who do not know about this movie it is about the five missionaries (Jim Elliot; Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully) who were killed in Ecuador in 1956 as they were trying to meet with the Auca Indians who were one of the most violent tribes around. The information behind the missionaries and their families is inspiring but the story that followed the killing was even more so.

The story that followed the “spearing” of the missionaries truly shows how God works in all things as the documentary shows how the Indians that were involved in the killing became believers and friends of Elisabeth Elliot (Jim Elliot’s Wife) and Rachel Saint (Nate Saint’s Daughter). It is truly a story of God working in the hearts of the people and making a change that only God could do. In the documentary there are two anthropologists that I would suspect do not see God doing the work but never the less speak about how for as long as could be remembered the Aucas were a violent tribe and within months of the two women going to live in their tribe things changed. The anthropologists relate this change to new information being given to the Indians, which is true, but it is much deeper than that.

One minor warning on the movie is that I does have what is described as “National Geographic nudity” since it has actual footage of the Aucas. My kids (15,13, 11)watched it with little problem.

In January of 2006 there is a full length movie, End of the Spear, about this coming out and I am very much looking forward to seeing it. Reading about Jim Elliot and the other missioners is one of the most inspirational things, apart from reading the Bible, that I have done.

Here are some of the books you can read on this topic:

Through Gates of Splendor
Shadow of the Almighty
The Savage My Kinsmen
The Journals of Jim Elliot
Jungle Pilot