(5–8 minutes, easy set-up)
Learners will listen to a story describing one woman’s conviction to minister to the people who killed her husband.
For more information on this story, go to http://www.elisabethelliot.org/about.html.
Share this story: After graduating from Wheaton College, Elisabeth moved to Ecuador where she married Jim Elliot and served alongside him as missionaries to the Quichua Indians in Ecuador. Jim had always wanted to serve an unreached people group. When the opportunity arose to work with the Aucas, a violent group that no missionary group had ever survived meeting, Jim and four other men set out for Auca lands. After what appeared to be progress with the people group there, the tribe speared Jim Elliot and the other missionaries to death. After Jim’s death, Elisabeth and their baby daughter continued their ministry in Ecuador. During that time, two women from the Auca tribe lived with them for a year. Sensing God’s “remarkable providence,” despite fear and discouragement from others, Elisabeth returned to this tribe. She worked among them sharing the gospel for two years before going back to Quito, Ecuador. Her conviction that God wanted them to work with this tribe helped her to follow Him into hostile territory to share the gospel with the very tribe who had murdered her husband and his fellow missionaries.
Encourage learners to discuss these questions:
Explain that, in today’s lesson, learners will have the opportunity to see how the Israelites responded to God’s call to enter the Promised Land even though it was inhabited by powerful enemies.