About the Book
"Don't Stop Here" by Chris Oyakhilome is a motivational book that encourages readers to push past obstacles and not settle for mediocrity in life. The book emphasizes the importance of faith, perseverance, and belief in oneself in order to achieve one's goals and fulfill one's potential. It challenges readers to keep moving forward and never give up on their dreams.
Jim Elliot
EARLY LIFE
Jim Elliot began his life in Portland, Oregon in the USA. His mother, Clara, was a chiropractor and his father, Fred, was a minister. They married and settled in Seattle, WA where they welcomed their first son, Robert in 1921.
Later they relocated the family to Portland where Herbert arrived in 1924, Jim in 1927, and Jane in 1932.
Jim knew Christ from an early age and was never afraid to speak about Him to his friends. At age six Jim told his mother, āNow, mama, the Lord Jesus can come whenever He wants. He could take our whole family because Iām saved now, and Jane is too young to know Him yet.ā
THE YEARS THAT CEMENTED HIS DESIRE TO SERVE THE LORD IN MISSIONS
Jim entered Benson Polytechnic High School in 1941. He carried a small Bible with him and, an excellent speaker; he was often found speaking out for Christ. He and his friends were not afraid to step out and find adventure. One thing Jim didnāt have time for in those early years were girls. He was once quoted as telling a friend, āDomesticated males arenāt much use for adventure.ā
In 1945 Jim traveled to Wheaton, IL to attend Wheaton College. His main goal while there was to devote himself to God. He recognized the importance of discipline in pursuing this goal. He would start each morning with prayer and Bible study. In his journal he wrote, āNone of it gets to be āold stuffā for it is Christ in print, the Living Word. We wouldnāt think of rising in the morning without a face-wash, but we often neglect the purgative cleansing of the Word of the Lord. It wakes us up to our responsibility.ā
Jimās desire to serve God by taking His gospel to unreached people of the world began to grow while at Wheaton. The summer of 1947 found him in Mexico and that time influenced his decision to minister in Central America after he finished college.
Jim met Elisabeth Howard during his third year at Wheaton. He did ask her for a date which she accepted and then later cancelled. They spent the next years as friends and after she finished at Wheaton they continued to correspond. As they came to know each other there was an attraction, but Jim felt he needed to unencumbered by worldly concerns in order to devote himself completely to God.
In addition to his hope to one day travel to a foreign country to share Christ with the unchurched of the world, he also felt the need to share with people in the United States. On Sundays while at Wheaton he would often ride the train into Chicago and talk to people in the train station about Christ. He often felt ineffective in his work as the times of knowingly leading people to Christ were few. He once wrote, āNo fruit yet. Why is that Iām so unproductive? I cannot recall leading more than one or two into the kingdom. Surely this is not the manifestation of the power of the Resurrection. I feel as Rachel, āGive me children, or else I die.āā
After college with no clear answer as to working for the Lord in a foreign country, Jim returned home to Portland. He continued his disciplined Bible study as well as correspondence with Elisabeth Howard whom he called Betty.
They both felt a strong attraction to each other during this time, but also felt that the Lord may have been calling them to be unmarried as they served Him.
In June of 1950 he travelled to Oklahoma to attend the Summer Institute of Linguistics. There he learned how to study unwritten languages. He was able to work with a missionary to the Quichuas of the Ecuadorian jungle. Because of these lessons he began to pray for guidance about going to Ecuador and later felt compelled to answer the call there.
Elisabeth Elliot wrote in Shadow of the Almighty:
āThe breadth of Jimās vision is suggested in this entry from the journal:
August 9. āGod just now gave me faith to ask for another young man to go, perhaps not this fall, but soon, to join the ranks in the lowlands of eastern Ecuador. There we must learn: 1) Spanish and Quichua, 2) each other, 3) the jungle and independence, and 4) God and Godās way of approach to the highland Quichua. From thence, by His great hand, we must move to the Ecuadorian highlands with several young Indians each, and begin work among the 800,000 highlanders. If God tarries, the natives must be taught to spread southward with the message of the reigning Christ, establishing New Testament groups as they go. Thence the Word must go south into Peru and Bolivia. The Quichuas must be reached for God! Enough for policy. Now for prayer and practice.
THE ECUADOR YEARS
In February 1952 Jim finally left America to travel to Ecuador with Pete Fleming. In May Elisabeth moved to Quito and though they didnāt feel the need to get engaged she and Jim did begin a courtship.
In August Jim left Elisabeth in Quito and travelled with Pete to Shell Mera. At the Mission Aviation Fellowship headquarters in Shell Mera, Jim and Pete learned more about the Acua Indians, a people group that was largely unreached and very savage.
Leaving Shell Mera, Pete and Jim moved on to Shandia where Jim was captivated by the Quichua. He felt very strongly that this was exactly where God intended for him to work to spread the Gospel.
While Jim was in Shandia, Elisabeth was working to learn more about the Colorado Indians near Santa Domingo. In January of 1953 he went to Quito and she met him there and they were finally engaged. They married in October of that year and their only child Valerie was born in 1955.
They settled in Shandia and continued their work with the Quichua Indians. It was Jimās desire to be able to reach the Waodoni tribe that lived deep in the jungles and had little contact with the outside world. A Waodoni woman who had left the tribe was taken in by the missionaries and helped them to learn the language.
Jim, along with Pete, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and their pilot Nate Saint began to search by plane in hopes of finding a way to contact the Waodoni. The found a sandbar in the middle of the Curaray River that worked as a landing strip for the plane and it was there that they first made contact with the Waodoni. They were elated to be able to finally be able to attempt to share the love of Christ with this people group.
After their first meeting, one of the tribe, a man they called George lied to the tribe about the menās intentions. This lie led the Waodoni warriors to plan an attack for when the missionaries returned. The men did return on January 8, 1956 and were surprised by ten members of the tribe who massacred the missionaries.
Jimās short life that was filled with the desire to share Godās love can be summed up by a quote that is attributed to him. āHe is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.ā
The Lost We Love the Most - Evangelism to Friends and Family
What is more difficult than sharing the gospel for the first time with someone you love? Sharing the gospel for the tenth time with someone you love ā even after theyāve already (repeatedly) responded with rejection or indifference. At that point, we often feel stuck, as though weāve played to a stalemate with our friend, child, neighbor, or spouse. Weāve prayed faithfully, spoken the gospel clearly, and loved patiently. But thereās been no sign of movement or progress. What more can we do? We donāt plan on giving up. Too much is at stake. But we know that unwanted repetition of the same gospel words may repel rather than attract, harden rather than soften. So, what to do next? Tiptoe around in conversation? Settle for pleasantries? Weāre left feeling weary and discouraged. We might grow cynical and resign ourselves to what feels like the inevitable reality that the person we care about wonāt ever follow Jesus. What do we say when weāve already said it all? How can we persevere in pursuing the lost we love? How to Get Unstuck There are several helpful responses to those of us who struggle in this way. First, it may be that weāre too focused on our own ability (or lack thereof) to win the person we love. Jesus points us away from ourselves and to the sovereignty of God. We can trust that, in his time, God will draw his people to his Son (John 6:44). It may be that weāre too absorbed with our present lack of success. The apostle Paul points us instead to the future: āLet us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give upā (Galatians 6:9). Another cause of our despair and confusion may be Satanās lie that weāre dealing with a static situation. Deep down, weāre convinced nothingās ever going to change. Our reason for feeling this way may be an unspoken belief that runs something like this: I have an unchanging gospel to share, and Iāve already shared it (multiple times!). I have nothing more to offer. Iāve done all I can. Nothingās going to change. āWhat if the situation with our lost loved one is more dynamic than Satan would have us believe?ā But what if evangelism is about more (not less) than sharing the content of the gospel? What if people are more complex and unpredictable than we may think? And what if the situation with our spouse, friend, child, parent, or neighbor is more dynamic than Satan would have us believe? In the face of an apparent stalemate, itās refreshing and encouraging to remind ourselves of three dynamic realities in any relationship with a lost loved one. This Person Will Change Itās all too easy to believe that the loved one who has repeatedly brushed you off or beaten you down will always reject the gospel. But people change. Thereās a popular myth that every cell in our bodies is replaced every seven years, so that weāre literally different people every 84 months. While untrue, itās a helpful metaphor for what really is the case. A 45-year-old you is (or will be) a different person from the 35-year-old you (who was different from the 25-year-old you). And this should make us hopeful. I have a friend who shares the gospel with hundreds of nursing-home residents every year. The pandemic has radically altered his ministry, but heās been creative, often visiting residents over an iPad held by a nursing home attendant. Not long ago, my friend asked supporters to pray for a resident named Bob. Pre-COVID Bob wasnāt terribly interested in the gospel. But thereās been a dramatic change. Now Bob is wide open to the gospel, eager for visits, prayer, and Bible reading. God used a virus to do that. Who could have predicted that? None of us knows what life changes are next for those we love. When their circumstances change, so may they. Suddenly, they may see the gospel as no longer worthless or irrelevant, but as precious and essential. You Will Change During my graduate studies, I shared a house with several other students, one of whom was an Englishman. We saw each other fairly often in the kitchen while preparing meals, and in the course of our many conversations, it was often natural for me to say things like, āI was reading something interesting in the Bible this morning,ā or, āI was really challenged by what I heard at church today.ā This was just me being me, sharing my own life (as friends do). Over time, I was able to share the gospel with my friend through these kitchen conversations. At the time, I didnāt realize all that was happening in his life. He was hurting and searching, and the gospel came to be attractive to him. One particular evening, one Iāll never forget, he stopped me in the living room of the house we shared and told me that he had become a Christian. One of the reasons we feel stuck in our evangelism may be that weāve wrongly narrowed down our task to sharing a message about how to be saved. That message is crucial and central, but if itās all we have to share, and weāve already shared it, and itās already been rejected, we might feel stuck. But our task is richer, deeper, and fuller than that. Weāre to share the gospel and our own selves (1 Thessalonians 2:8), because a life redeemed by the gospel retells the gospel but with unique, personal, and relatable details. So, there are many additional fruitful gospel conversations to be had even after our loved one has rejected the gospel. For instance, we can continue to express what the gospel means to us. We can share how new struggles and setbacks are helping us to trust Christ more. Itās entirely possible to do this in a way that is natural, unforced, and not preachy. As we experience more of the Christ we love, we can express this to the people we love. Weāre never stuck with just one thing to say. Your Friendship Will Change I have a longtime friend who doesnāt know Jesus. Iāve frequented his business establishment for many years, not so much because I think I need what heās selling, but because I know he needs what Iām giving away. āDonāt believe the lie that nothing will ever change, that thereās nothing more for you to say or do.ā Early on in our friendship, we chitchatted about the weather and sports. Then we started sharing about our kids and families. In the years since, weāve talked about things like church, the gospel, death, and friendship. When Iām in his shop by myself, the conversation can go very deep very quickly. Iāve invited him to church numerous times and heās never accepted. Iāve explained the gospel, and he hasnāt believed. But I have hope, in part because our friendship isnāt static. I can say more to him now than I could five years ago. What might I be able to say five years from now? Donāt assume your relationship with your friend, child, neighbor, or spouse will always be where it is today. In fact, assume it will change. And ask God to open doors through those changes. Donāt Give Up My friend who ministers in nursing homes told me about a man named Rich, a former engineer, living in a nursing home. One July afternoon a year or two ago, after a conversation in his room, Rich decided that he wanted to know Jesus. He prayed and invited Jesus to be his Savior. Soon afterward, he began a course of discipleship with my friend, reading through the Gospel of John together. Rich was 98 years old. I wonder how many people had shared the gospel with Rich over the course of many years and not broken through? I wonder how many had given up hope? But after 98 years, God saved him. Please donāt lose heart. Donāt believe the lie that nothing will ever change, that thereās nothing more for you to say or do. Donāt settle into the conviction that your spouse, child, neighbor, or friend will never come to know Jesus. Keep praying. Keep patiently speaking as you have opportunity. Keep loving with the love of Jesus. Keep sharing the twists and turns of your own life as you cling to Jesus and grow in him. Keep persevering in pursuing the lost you love. Article by Stephen Witmer Pastor, Pepperell, Massachusetts
