Elisabeth Elliot: After my husband Jim died, I had said, "Lord, do anything You want with me. If there's any way in the world that You can use me to open a door for the Auca Indians, I'm Yours."

Lisa Barry: Have you ever prayed something because you thought it sounded like the right thing, but never imagined it would really come to pass? That was the attitude Elisabeth Elliot had about that prayer we just heard. She thought it sounded good, but never in her wildest dreams did she think God would take her up on her availability.

As we'll find out today, there are many things that seem impossible to us?things we dare not even pray for because they seem too far-fetched. But as you listen today, I hope you'll have a renewed and expanded vision of what God can and will do through people who are open and available to carry out His plans. It's all coming up next on this Thursday edition of Gateway to Joy.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That?s what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, winding up my talk about the experience that I had way back in November 1957. It was the sequel to the story that some of you are familiar with called THROUGH GATES OF SPLENDOR.

I had put myself totally at God?s disposal and told Him that if there was ever anything that I could do about the Indians called Aucas, who had killed my husband and four other American missionaries, that I was available?not supposing that God would call on me to do this. Yet in His amazing providence, He gave me the privilege of meeting two Auca Indian women, members of that same tribe. I could not speak a word to them. They had come out to a settlement of Quichua Indians, with whom I was familiar. So I was with them on what was called the Oglan River on the edge of Auca territory in 1957. I have been reading from my journal of that time.

"This morning the Quichuas went out for roof leaf to finish Dario?s new house." Dario was the Quichua man who had welcomed me to his house when these two Auca women had suddenly turned up just out of the blue, as it were. "They worked until about 9:30, and then they knocked off to chat. Dinner was smoked and boiled fish, manioc and plantain, which was served at 10:30 in the morning; the men squatting around one banana leaf on the floor and the women around another. The bones were flung anywhere, and many dogs were ready to devour them.

Both of the Auca women seemed to understand perfectly when I said, ?He went? and ?He will come.? Of course, I was referring to an English missionary, Dr. Tidmarsh, who had gone back to his station.

The plane came over at 11:30 a.m. Both of the Auca women went into their little room and covered their heads with blankets. I received a telephone receiver in a bucket drop from the airplane, and so I was able to converse with the pilot, Johnny Keenan. What a thrill! He says, ?Everyone is praying for you. Please be careful, etc.?

Mankamu sat up by the house, laughing and talking with the Quichua women. Mintaka sat on the second floor, crying. The Quichuas said she was singing, but who knows? The plane came over to drop mail, blankets, soap and my own Auca notebook with Dayuma?s data.

Dayuma was a woman from the Auca tribe who had left her tribe about 15 years earlier. She lived on a hacienda not very far from where my husband, Jim Elliot, and I had been working with the Quichuas. We were able to get just a very few vocabulary words from Dayuma. She had forgotten a great deal of the Auca language, but she gave us a few words which we hoped might be useful. It did appear that the Aucas understood what I was trying to say to them from time to time, but most of my talking was with gestures.

The Quichuas asked me if I would have a meeting that night. So at 6:15 they all gathered around and I taught them some songs and tried to tell them the whole story of Jesus. Many of these Quichuas had never heard who He was, and so I emphasized His coming to earth as a human being, His power and His resurrection.

It?s 11:30 a.m. The men from all the houses have gathered, paint on their faces, beads on their necks, feather crowns, best clothes, and are marching round and round and round, beating their drums. It got to be very monotonous. They hadn?t stopped more than once or twice in a whole hour. The women, of course, were giving them strong chicha. Some were already drunk. It wasn?t exactly the kind of an example that I wanted for my two Auca friends." I learned years later that Aucas knew nothing at all about strong drink. They had never been intoxicated.

I wrote in my journal, "I myself reek of smoke, strong chicha, rose soap, which was one of the few kinds of soap that we could buy in that area of Ecuador, tobacco and fly repellant." Let me assure you, I never smoked, but it was impossible not to reek of tobacco smoke when all the Indian men around me were smoking.

"Some of the women who are here now did not come to the meeting. One of them told me she was dying to hear what I had to say. They are all so friendly and kind. The idea of the drum seems to be simply to have noise in the background for drinking and jolly conversation, the same as the juke box principle or people who leave the radio on full blast all day.

My experiences these few days have certainly been unique, or at least I?ve never had so much of this sort of thing. Now I am surrounded closely by half-drunk men, who slap me on the shoulder, look me in the eye, breath alcohol up my nose, look at my watch, examine my belt, ask questions about my country and are very patronizing in general.

At night, I sleep side by side with them, laugh with them at 2 a.m. over someone?s silly joke, sing with them. The women are most loving and thoughtful. The men are perfectly respectful to the Auca women, as well as to me."

Now remember, I am talking about Quichua men. They are really a hostile tribe to the Aucas. The Quichuas were peaceable people, but they had never gotten along with Aucas before. But now that these two women have suddenly appeared in their little village, the Quichua men are perfectly respectful to them.

"This amazes me," I wrote. "Yet I have always felt completely at home with Quichua Indians, and now with Aucas.

The menu today. Breakfast: a cup of wisa," which is a drink that they make from a vine, "half of a baked plantain." Not a very big breakfast, was it? One cup of wisa and half of a baked plantain. Plantain is sort of like a banana. "Lunch was one egg and one boiled plantain, and that was at ten in the morning. Supper was at 4:30: lentil and manioc soup. And I had a papaya at midday."

This has all been a journal from the time when the Lord gave me the privilege of meeting two Auca women who had come out to a Quichua settlement. It was, indeed, the answer to a great prayer of my heart. After my husband Jim died, I had said, "Lord, do anything You want with me. If there's any way in the world that You can use me to open a door for the Auca Indians, I'm Yours."

I had made the commitment that Betty Scott Stamm had written when she was a young woman. I had copied that into the back of my Bible when I was about 12 years old. This is what it says: "Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever."

So these two Auca women, who had appeared at the Quichua village, came back with me to my jungle station, where I had been working with Jim Elliot. Of course, my little daughter was then two years old. These two Auca women lived with me for almost a year in a Quichua house. During that time, of course I was desperately trying to learn their language, trying to find out if they knew why the five men had been killed and trying to find out what it was that they had come out to do.

Toward the end of that year, I felt that I had learned just barely enough of their language that they were saying, "When this palm fruit is ripe, we?re going home and we want you to go with us." So it came about that in the fall of 1958, a year after I had first met these women, Rachel Saint and Dayuma, an Auca girl who had been in the States with Rachel?the two of them came back to Ecuador. All four of us accepted the invitation to go and live with the Auca Indians.

So it was that my book called THE SAVAGE, MY KINSMAN was written, just telling all about what that very first year of living with the Indians who had killed my husband was about. Some of you know the book THROUGH GATES OF SPLENDOR. Many of you may not be aware of the sequel to that, which tells the story of God?s giving me the privilege of meeting those two women; and through that, giving Rachel, Dayuma, Valerie and me the wonderful privilege of going in and living there with them.

Lisa Barry: This is an incredible story and we have the book available that tells the details from beginning to end. It's called THE SAVAGE, MY KINSMAN. And what's so amazing to me is not just that a savage tribe was befriended by an American missionary, but that the same tribe was responsible for killing Elisabeth's husband. For most of us, an offense like that would demolish any interest in reaching them. Add to that, not knowing a word of the Auca language, and so neither one could clarify their intentions. It's something only God could have woven together.

And I pray that you and I will take this example to heart and know that if God can reach a savage tribe through one widowed woman, He can work miracles in your life, too. In fact, He wants to do immeasurably more than anything you've ever prayed for. And if you need a reminder of that, then the book THE SAVAGE, MY KINSMAN should be on your bookshelf.

For information on how to purchase that or to purchase a copy of this weekly tape called JOURNAL STORIES, you can call us here toll-free at 1-800-759-4JOY. Our mailing address is Gateway to Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501.

Well, I hope by now you've had a chance to visit our Web site. It's located at gatewaytojoy.org and it's getting better all the time. You can find daily transcripts, listening guides, purchasing information and upcoming topics. You can also get information about how to become a Gatekeeper Partner. That's the best way I know of for you to be involved in Elisabeth's outreach. Our Internet address again is gatewaytojoy.org. Today?s program has been a production of Back to the Bible and is supported by listeners like you. Thank you from our hearts for your continuing support of Gateway to Joy through your gifts and prayers.

Be with us again tomorrow as Elisabeth talks about the need to die to self in order to Christ to live through us. That's next time on Gateway to Joy.