This is a hardback authorised biography of Elisabeth Elliot, who liked to be called Betty. The author has had tremendous access to her journals and personal papers and interviewed many people who knew Betty, including some of the tribal people with whom she lived in the jungle in Ecuador. ... It's a page turner, I just couldn't put it down. You get to know Betty through her life as a single woman, then a wife, a mother and a widow. You read of her spiritual struggles and her devotedness to the Scriptures. The book de-glamourises the period after the death of her husband ... You can almost feel the mud and smell the flies as the descriptions of life in the Waodani village jump off the pages. Betty's troubled personal and professional relationship with Rachel Saint is laid bare. ... The thing that struck me most was that Elisabeth Elliot is a heroine of the faith, but she is not a role model. She, like many other pioneer missionaries, were 'one-offs'. They were people called by God for such a time and equipped with the personalities and gifts for that time and that task. We cannot emulate them, however, we must, as Betty often said, know our Scriptures and pursue obedience to God in whatever situation he calls us to follow him.
- Sheila Stephen
The Authorized Biography - Elisabeth's Early Years
- Author: Ellen Vaughn
- Foreword by: Joni Eareckson Tada
- Format: Hardback
- Publisher: B&H Publishing Group (September 2020)
- ISBN: 9781535910934
- Pages: 299
- RRP: £18.99
Elisabeth Elliot was a young missionary in Ecuador when members of a violent Amazonian tribe savagely speared her husband Jim and his four colleagues. Incredibly, prayerfully, Elisabeth took her toddler daughter, snakebite kit, Bible, and journal . . . and lived in the jungle with the Stone-Age people who killed her husband. Compelled by her friendship and forgiveness, many came to faith in Jesus.
This courageous, no-nonsense Christian went on to write dozens of books, host a long-running radio show, and speak at conferences all over the world. She was a pillar of coherent, committed faith; a beloved and sometimes controversial icon. In this authorized biography, Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, bestselling author Ellen Vaughn uses Elisabeth’s private, unpublished journals, and candid interviews with her family and friends, to paint the adventures and misadventures God used to shape one of the most influential women in modern church history. It’s the story of a hilarious, sensual, brilliant, witty, self-deprecating, sensitive, radical, and surprisingly relatable person utterly submitted to doing God’s will, no matter how high the cost.
For Elisabeth, the central question was not, “How does this make me feel?” but, simply, “is this true?” If so, then the next question was, “what do I need to do about it to obey God?”