Special Exhibit: The Elisabeth Elliot Story
January 31, 2025 - May 10, 2025
The Billy Graham Museum welcomed a special traveling exhibit, Through Gates of Splendor: The Elisabeth Elliot Story, in early 2025. A partnership with Museum of the Bible and The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation, Through Gates of Splendor explored the remarkable story of one woman’s faith and resilience in the face of overwhelming tragedy.
A tribute to her bestselling 1957 book of the same name, Through Gates of Splendor featured rare artifacts, photographs, and other memorabilia documenting Elisabeth Elliot’s legacy as a pioneering missionary and Bible translator among the Waorani people in the jungles of Ecuador.
After graduating from Wheaton College in 1948, Elisabeth Elliot (née Howard) followed God’s call to missionary service in Ecuador, where she and her husband Jim Elliot, also a Wheaton graduate, were married in October 1953.
On January 2, 1956, Jim Elliot and four other American missionaries— Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian—traveled into the remote Ecuadorian jungle to make contact with the Waorani, an indigenous people group unreached by the Gospel. They never returned. Six days later, the bodies of all five men were discovered, killed by Waorani spears.
Jim Elliot’s tragic death catapulted his widow into the global spotlight. The following year she published Through Gates of Splendor, a stirring account of the massacre on Palm Beach and the unwavering faith of the five missionaries.
Two years later, Elisabeth returned to the jungles of Ecuador, along with her three-year old daughter Valerie, to continue her husband’s work. Her decision to live among the Waorani people, despite her own tragic loss, remains a powerful testament to her uncompromising faith in God’s call to fulfill the Great Commission and to practice radical forgiveness.
Notecards written by Elisabeth Elliot containing vocabulary from the Waodäni language, ca. 1958. Photo Credit: Museum of the Bible.
Through Gates of Splendor: The Elisabeth Elliot Story opened on January 31 and ran through May 10, 2025. For more information, contact the Billy Graham Museum at 630-752-5960 or bgmuseum@wheaton.edu.