In January 1956, five American Christian missionaries were brutally killed by members of a remote Amazonian tribe.
The missionaries had made contact with the Auca, or Huaorani tribe a year earlier, in an attempt to convert them to Christianity.
A small nomadic tribe, the Huaorani were notoriously suspicious of outsiders.
Valerie Shepard’s father, Jim Elliot, was one of the five men on the mission into the jungle.
She spoke to Witness about her father’s death and how she learned to forgive his killers.
This story & video is originally from BBC NEWS - 22 February 2017 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39039876
You can read more about the life of Jim Elliot in the following books:
The Shadow of the Almighty - By Elizabeth Elliot
The inspiring life of the missionary Jim Elliot, who was murdered in Ecuador. This is the story of an earthly man with a heavenly mind. Jim Elliot was a man of passion and a man of prayer. This book chronicles his journey from childhood in Oregon and his college days at Wheaton to the mission field of Ecuador where he eventually gave his life at age 28. Full of journal excerpts and personal letters, we are introduced to this great man, his struggles, his ambitions, his loves, his dreams and his all-consuming passion for Christ and His kingdom.
Jim Elliot (Heroes of the Cross) - By Kathleen White - (for young adults)
Kathleen White's biography of Jim Elliot is a fairly short but penetrating portrait of perhaps the most well-known of the five missionaries to the Auca tribe of Ecuador who gave their lives in 1956 in the service of God, whom they followed wholeheartedly.