Book Review - Made for the Journey by Elisabeth Elliot

Made for the Journey: One Missionary's First Year in the Jungles of Ecuador by Elisabeth Elliot gives a fascinating glimpse into life in the mountains of Ecuador in the 1950s.  I was not familiar with Elliot at all - in fact, I had never heard of her - so I didn't have expectations into what I was to read.  She did a good job of painting a picture of the unfamiliar world she was immersed into as a young missionary.  Since I was not familiar with her, some of the elements of backstory were missing for me, and I did wonder exactly how this young woman ended up in the jungle trying to create a written form of a language that few people understood.  Also, as I am a Catholic, my religious world view is certainly different from that of the author, but it was easy to like her and sympathize with her efforts.  Elliot's account of that year near the Colorado people is full of vibrant descriptions, but the overall goals of the missionaries seemed a bit obscure to me.  Naturally, they wanted to share the word of God, but their methods and desires were largely unaddressed.  It did seem that several of the women in the mission field, Elliot included, were just spending some time here while waiting for marriage.  Still, this is a valuable first-person account of the early interactions between foreign missionaries and the indigenous people of Ecuador.  Her descriptions of the environment made it easy to imagine being there, although her descriptions of the native people themselves left something more to desire.  Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I don't know how much a casual reader would. 

I received this book from the publisher, Revell, for the purpose of writing a review, but all opinions are my own.