She Went In

“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” — Romans 12:21 (KJV)

Not everyone thought she should go. To many of her friends and family it looked reckless to the point of foolishness: a young widow taking a three-year-old to live among the people who had speared her husband less than three years before. The Waorani had killed outsiders for generations and each other even more often. Nobody could promise the invitation was meant by everyone. If Elisabeth were killed, Valerie would be an orphan. If Valerie were killed, it was hard to imagine what anyone could say.

Elisabeth weighed all of it. She didn't wave away the danger, and she didn't claim any special promise that she would be safe. Her reasoning was simpler. The Waorani had asked her to come. She was one of the very few outsiders who had begun to learn their language. She believed God had called her to make Christ known to people who had never heard of him, and these were those people. She didn't think being a mother released her from obedience. And she didn't think obedience guaranteed a good outcome.

People have often told this as a dramatic act of forgiveness: a widow going to find her husband's killers so she could love them. She didn't describe it that way. She went as a missionary to a people. The fact that some of them had killed Jim was part of the situation, not the point of it. Forgiveness was real and necessary, but it wasn't a performance. It was simply the condition of going at all.

Early in October 1958 Elisabeth, Valerie and Rachel Saint walked into the forest with Dayuma and the Waorani who had come to fetch them. Valerie had to be carried. On 8 October, by the date usually given, they reached a clearing by a small river called the Tiwaeno. It would have been Jim's thirty-first birthday, and it was their fifth wedding anniversary.

The houses were big shelters thatched with palm leaves, with hammocks slung inside. People grew manioc and plantains, hunted monkeys and birds with blowguns and spears, and wore almost nothing. Most had never seen a foreigner up close, let alone a fair-haired little girl. Elisabeth and Valerie lived in a simple thatched shelter. The Waorani gave Elisabeth a name: Gikari, which means woodpecker. Valerie started picking up Waorani from the children she played with. Dayuma, home at last, began telling her people Bible stories in her own way.

Among the people of the clearing were men who had been on the beach. Gikita, who had led the attack, was there. So were Kimo, Dyuwi and Mincaye. Most of the men who had killed Jim were living a few yards from his widow and daughter.

What did she feel? She didn't claim to feel nothing, and she didn't claim to feel only love. What struck her again and again was how ordinary they were. They laughed, joked, argued, looked after their children, mourned their dead and went hunting. They had killed the five men, as they had killed many others, out of fear and anger and a long habit of violence, and in time they talked about it plainly. She didn't excuse it. She didn't pretend it didn't matter. But she didn't hate them. She had settled that before she came. Now she had to live it, every day, at their fires.

Overcoming evil with good is one of the hardest commands in the Bible. It doesn't mean pretending a wrong wasn't wrong. And here's something important: forgiving someone is not the same as putting yourself back where they can hurt you. Elisabeth went because she believed God was calling her and the people had invited her, not because forgiveness required it. If someone is still harming you, forgiveness can start with telling a safe adult what's happening.

One thing to do this week: think of one person you hold a grudge against. Pray for them by name every day this week, asking God to do them good, even if your feelings don't come along yet.