Made for the Journey by Elisabeth Elliot

One Missionary's First Year in the Jungles of Ecuador

This is the story I have never heard much about, the story of Elisabeth Elliot's first year in the jungle, before she was married, parts of it even before she really knew if marriage to Jim was an option. This is the story of her year San Miguel de los Colorados, her work of trying to come up with a written language for the Colorado Indians and the disappointments and struggles she had to work through when it seemed that God had let her down.

It's not a big book, I read it in about two days. It's an easy read that pulls you into the story. She has a fun way of saying things like, "Dorothy was large of heart as well as of body..."  I mean I love that description!!  It's so kindly put.  Or this: "Our sanctification was rigorously tried as we sought to tenderize our meat or beans in this civilized pot [pressure cooker]..." And then it exploded one day or the safety valve went flying through the roof. "It was lost forever, so the Lord delivered us from that temptation."  Such a fun description of the hardships of cooking in the jungle.

But there are also some lessons that Elisabeth learns in that year, wondering why death happens or things are lost. I'm not going to expound more, if you don't know what happened, read the book.

And a little on the naivety possibly of a young passionate missionary: "I had no doubt that God was on my side, and this was a secret satisfaction. Someday God and I would show these proud, independent Indians that we had plans for them, plans that they would not ultimately succeed in thwarting."

And then there was some things to ponder as well: "And so it often is. Faith, prayer, and obedience are our requirements. We are not offered in exchange immunity and exemption from the world's woes. What we are offered has to do with another world altogether."

I received this book from Revell Publishers and was not required to write a positive review, but I would recommend this book to anyone interested.

This book for formerly published as "These Strange Ashes"