Rachel Saint (Inspiring Women in Missions, Pt. 5)

Rachel Saint & Elisabeth Elliot's love for Christ led them to share the Gospel with the same people who killed Rachel's brother & Elisabeth's husband.

Rachel Saint
(Inspiring Women in Missions, Pt. 5)

This week's devotions are written by my friend Jessica Hermann, former director of our college ministry at Great Hills Baptist Church.

- Pastor Danny

"After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!"

(Revelation 7:9-10)

Some of the most famous missionaries in modern Christian history are the "Ecuador 5": the five men, including Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, who died in the jungles of Ecuador while trying to make contact with a remote tribe known for being violent with outsiders. These five bright, young, enthusiastic men were all killed on the banks of a river in the Ecuadorian jungle by the people they were trying to reach. Jim Elliot's widow, Elisabeth, wrote multiple books about their experiences, Jim's life, and more, and they are the most well-known people in the whole story among the Christian community today. But there are other figures in this story as well. Nate Saint, the team pilot who died along with Jim and the 3 other men, had a sister named Rachel who was also working with this tribe.

Rachel Saint grew up in Pennsylvania as the daughter of a stained glass window maker. As a young girl, the woman who funded the work of her father offered to make Rachel her heiress after taking her on a trip to London. What young girl wouldn't be thrilled at this prospect?! Rachel, however, prayerfully approached this decision and eventually turned it down,

deciding to reject a life of luxury after she had a vision of an unknown group of people beckoning to her. She fell to her knees and resolved to devote her life to going to these people with the good news of Jesus!

Eventually this led Rachel to Ecuador to work with this tribe we mentioned before. A young woman had run away from the tribe when she was very young, and Rachel Saint began working with her to understand the language so that they may be able to reach them with the Gospel.

Following the death of the five men, the Lord opened up an opportunity for Rachel and Elisabeth Elliot to live among the tribe. The faith of these women astounds me. These people had just killed their brother and husband respectively, yet these ladies' love for the Lord led them to still desire for these people to hear the Gospel. Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot would live among them for years. Rachel's nephew, son of her late brother, would come to visit every summer and was even baptized in the river right next to where His dad had died, giving His life for these people to know Jesus. God blessed the ministry of Rachel and Elisabeth, and many in the tribe became Christians.

Lest you think that missionaries are special super-Christians, these two ladies had trouble getting along, and Rachel would eventually be sent back to the US years later for being too controlling of the church and settlement that they had started there among the people. Yet it doesn't reduce the ways that her life witnesses to the fact that God desires all people to know Him.

It reminds me of the words of Helen Roseveare that we read yesterday. Instead of asking, "Is it really worth it?" ask instead, "Is God worthy?" The tribe that Rachel worked with was very small, maybe a few thousand people. Yet Rachel dedicated her life to learning their language, reducing it to writing, and teaching it to the people who killed her brother so that they might be able to read God's Word. Maybe some would say it would be worth it for a language spoken by hundreds of thousands or millions of people. But again, this was just a couple thousand people in the jungle. One could see the skills of people like Rachel, Nate, Jim, or Elisabeth and wonder if their lives would have been better spent elsewhere. But is God worthy of the worship of these few thousand people in Ecuador? Yes He is.

"And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." - Nate Saint