Through Gates of Splendor

Jim Elliot, the husband of the book’s author, Elisabeth Elliot, was one of the five young missionaries to Ecuador whose life was cut short in an attempt to reach the Huaorani people. Like Elisabeth, he studied at Wheaton College, and he was widely admired for his leadership skills and religious fervor. He went to Ecuador as a missionary in 1952 alongside a friend, Pete Fleming, and they set about their language studies. Jim married Elisabeth Elliot in 1953 in Quito, Ecuador, and together they engaged on a mission to the Quichua people.

Jim was one of the driving forces behind “Operation Auca,” the push to contact and evangelize the Huaorani tribe, with his devotional fervor and enthusiasm helping to draw other members of the team together. He had discerned a calling to the Huaorani people as early as 1950—before his arrival in Ecuador—when a former missionary told him about the uncontacted group. As soon as the first indications of a possible contact were raised, Jim was at the forefront of making plans toward that end. Of the five missionaries killed in that endeavor, Jim Elliot is the most widely known, largely because of his wife Elisabeth’s role in telling the story. Elisabeth Elliot went on to publish further books touching on Jim’s life, including a 1958 biography titled Shadow of the Almighty: The Jim Elliot Story, and a compilation of Jim’s journals in 1978.

Nate Saint, one of the five men killed in Huaorani territory, was a missionary pilot serving with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship), an agency that specialized in ferrying missionaries and supplies to distant outposts in difficult terrain. Like Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, Saint was a graduate of Wheaton College, and his early interest in aviation developed into an awareness of the usefulness of his skills in the context of Christian missionary work. He was the first of the book’s main figures to begin working in Ecuador, arriving with his wife Marjorie in 1948. Nate and Marj set up their aviation ministry in an abandoned oil-company outpost called Shell Mera, with Nate running the flights and Marj as the radio contact.

Saint was an ingenious mechanic as well as a pilot, and he developed several jury-rigged systems that later became standard features of other missionary flights. Among these was a cable gift-drop system, which, when paired with a circular flight pattern, enabled a direct exchange of goods with those on the ground, and even the ability to communicate via a lowered telephone. This cable system became an integral part of the team’s outreach to the Huaorani, used every week to deliver gifts to the Huaorani in the months leading up to the in-person contact attempt. While many of the men engaged in “Operation Auca” kept diaries or journals, Saint’s notes were often the most detailed and expansive, such that his writings fill a substantial portion of Through Gates of Splendor.

Pete Fleming, one of the five men killed in Huaorani territory, was a friend of Jim Elliot and his first mission partner in Ecuador. Although Fleming, unlike many of the others, did not attend Wheaton College (he was a philosophy major at the University of Washington), he connected with Jim Elliot through conferences, and they undertook a preaching tour together. Partly via Elliot’s influence, Fleming began to consider serving as a missionary. Elliot had been hoping to go to Ecuador as a single missionary, partnered together with another single man, but when his friend Ed McCully decided to get married, Elliot turned to Fleming to see if he would fill that role. Elliot and Fleming arrived in Ecuador in 1952 and began learning Spanish and Quichua, but their resolution to enter the mission field single was soon left aside, with Jim Elliot marrying Elisabeth the following year and Fleming resuming a relationship with his former fiancée, Olive. Pete and Olive were married in the summer of 1954, just a year and a half before his death.

While Jim Elliot was focused on ministry to the Huaorani as soon as the opportunity presented itself, Fleming was less certain that he was being called to the Huaorani. While plans were being put in place for “Operation Auca,” Fleming spent long hours in prayer, seeking discernment as to whether God would have him join the effort. His participation was not certain until the final days of launching the endeavor.

Ed McCully, one of the five men killed in Huaorani territory, was a longtime friend of Jim Elliot and a fellow alum of Wheaton College. Like Elliot, he was widely admired for his leadership qualities and speaking abilities, and after college he enrolled in law school. He soon decided on another course in life, inspired partly by his study of the Bible and partly by his correspondence with Elliot. Leaving law school, he worked in Christian radio and engaged on a speaking tour, during which time he met his future wife, Marilou. Ed’s relationship with Marilou convinced Jim Elliot to look elsewhere for an immediate partner for his first entry into Ecuador (thus bringing Pete Fleming along), but Ed and Marilou were not far behind. They left for Ecuador late in 1952, joining Elliot and Fleming at the mission station in Shandia, where they set to work learning Spanish and Quichua.

As “Operation Auca” developed, Ed and Marilou McCully were at the forefront of the developments. Along with Nate Saint and Jim Elliot, McCully was committed to the operation from the start. He and Marilou established a new post at Arajuno, a mission station that stood just beyond the outskirts of Huaorani territory. As such, the McCullys’ home at Arajuno became the base of operations for much of the subsequent activity, from the launching of flights toward Huaorani settlements to gathering the search party for the dead bodies after the tragic events at the Palm Beach landing site.