4:13 Podcast: Can My Faith Be Impacted By Elisabeth Elliot? With Ellen Vaughn [Episode 141]

Jennifer Rothschild: What is your very favorite Elisabeth Elliot quote?

Ellen Vaughn: There are so many to choose from. She was such a quote-worthy person because she was so articulate in a powerful way. But there's one that I do love especially, it's something like this, "If a duty is clear, then the dangers surrounding it are irrelevant." And I can take that and say, "Okay, Ellen, if God's will is clear. Then the dangers or the inconveniences or the hassle or whatever it is surrounding it is irrelevant."

Jennifer Rothschild: Elisabeth Elliot was a young missionary in Ecuador when her husband, Jim, and his four friends were brutally killed by members of a primitive Amazonian tribe. And incredibly, Elisabeth, along with her toddler daughter, stayed and lived in the jungle with the very people who killed her husband. This courageous, no-nonsense woman went on to write dozens of books, host a radio show, and speak at conferences all over the world. She was a beloved and sometimes controversial icon of the faith. Well, today, you get the privilege of hearing from the author of the only authorized biography on Elisabeth Elliot's life. Oh, it's so good my people. Best-selling author Ellen Vaughn is going to share how she used Elisabeth's private unpublished journals and interviews with Elisabeth's family and friends to create this amazing biography. I found this one of the most fascinating and inspiring conversations, and I know you will, too. So, K.C., pour the coffee, pull out the chairs. Here we come.

K.C. Wright: Welcome, welcome, welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. Now, welcome your host, a woman who was totally geeking out about today's podcast, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Was it that obvious?

K.C. Wright: Oh man. You are geeking out Jumanji, Level 10 right now.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, well, y'all know, I love books.

K.C. Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: But this was just such a fascinating privilege to talk to Ellen Vaughn to really get an inside view of Elisabeth Elliot's life. So welcome, we are glad you're here. I'm Jennifer, I'm just here to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you live this "I Can" life. And that was my buddy, K.C., my seeing-eye guy and it's just two friends, one topic, zero stress. Oh, y'all. Elisabeth Elliot, she really is one of my favorite women. She really, she does inspire me. And so we're talking to Ellen Vaughn today, and she's written literally the only authorized biography.

K.C. Wright: Wow.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's a very big deal.

K.C. Wright: It is truly.

Jennifer Rothschild: So when you read the book, it's called Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, you'll find it's the story of a hilarious, brilliant, self-deprecating, sensitive, radical, and surprisingly relatable personality. And this woman, Elisabeth, she is totally submitted to doing God's will, no matter how high the cost. And there was a very high cost.

K.C. Wright: Yeah, I even read that for Elisabeth, the central question was not: How does this make me feel, but simply is this true? If so, then the next question was: What do I need to do about it to obey God? This is some serious, down-right heartstring-pulling inspiration right here.

Jennifer Rothschild: It really is. Yeah. But you're also about to hear that Ellen found some surprises in the private journals, stuff that we would never have known. And honestly, guys, it made me think, hmm, I wonder what our 4:13'ers don't know about us, K.C., that might surprise them.

K.C. Wright: Oh, okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay.

K.C. Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So...

K.C. Wright: Well, what is something people would be surprised to know about you, Jennifer Rothschild?

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, we kind of do talk about everything, so it's hard to say.

K.C. Wright: I know, we unleash it all on the podcast.

Jennifer Rothschild: I think, well, that they wouldn't know.

K.C. Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: My very favorite food is veggie pizza.

K.C. Wright: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's a thin crust.

K.C. Wright: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I have been bungee jumping. I have bungee jumped.

K.C. Wright: Okay, that's fun.

Jennifer Rothschild: A lot of people don't know that.

K.C. Wright: Okay, I love that.

Jennifer Rothschild: Um. And what else?

K.C. Wright:You love veggie pizza and jumping out of cages.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, what about you, though, K.C.? What's something they would not know about you?

K.C. Wright: Um, I get a kick out of this little unknown fact. But my dad and Uncle Jerry built a plane.

Jennifer Rothschild: Mhmm.

K.C. Wright: A long time ago. And it's kind of funny because they were the Wright Brothers, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: But I just I love flying and I have flown. And we used to go to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, every year for the big air show up there and camp out underneath the wings of the planes. And I'm just a plane geek.

Jennifer Rothschild: You are not a PLAIN geek, but a PLANE, because you're a spicy plane geek.

K.C. Wright: I was hoping that you would go there. Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, it was a good reminder that it's kind of just fun to get to know the surprising fun facts. And even near the end of this conversation, you're going to hear something about Ellen herself, the author, that was surprising and very touching. So let's introduce her.

K.C. Wright: Ellen Vaughn is a best-selling author and speaker who has written or co-written twenty-three books, along with authors such as the late Charles Colson. She began working on the Elisabeth Elliot biography over two years ago, did extensive research to carefully detail Elliott's early years with accuracy. So you'll totally enjoy learning from Ellen and Elisabeth Elliot. So are you ready? Let's listen in.

Jennifer Rothschild: So, Ellen, I understand that you live in the D.C. area and you grew up a C.S. Lewis geek who wanted to be a writer. So I've just got to tell you, girl, I'm already crazy about you.

Ellen Vaughn: Well, I'm so glad.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I want us to focus on this book. Elisabeth Elliot, I want to focus on her story. Okay, so can you give us a quick bio for those who may not know who she is, you know, like as if this were her LinkedIn profile. So we get a good idea of who she is.

Ellen Vaughn: Right. Well, for many people, they're familiar with the story or they think they're familiar with the story. I think this book has a lot of surprises for the story we all thought we knew. That's another thing. And some have never heard of Elisabeth Elliot, who is she and why should I care? And so she was a person I grew up admiring. She was a missionary to Ecuador, along with her husband in the late 1950s. And she and Jim Elliot, along with the four other couples, really felt a call from God, a growing sense that God wanted them to reach out to an indigenous people group deep in the Amazon jungle. And this was a very violent, Stone Age tribe, who killed everyone who tried to enter their territory and also were killing off each other. And so it's a long story, but eventually, Jim Elliot and the four other male missionaries went into the jungle to meet with the tribe. And all of them, in fact, were speared to death in the aftermath of that tragedy, which at the time it flashed around the world. It was a big story, not just among Christians, but among all North Americans at the time and the aftermath of that awful tragedy, these five young women in their 20s, amazing followers of Jesus, all continued on in ministry in different ways. And Elisabeth Elliot felt like if her husband, Jim, had loved this tribe so much to go and die for them, then she loved them, too.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Ellen Vaughn: And by a series of crazy, incredible twists and turns, God opened the way for Elisabeth Elliot and her little daughter, Valerie, who was about three years old, to go and live with the tribal people who had killed Elisabeth's husband. They went in along with Rachel Saint, the sister of Nate Saint one of the other missionaries, and they lived among the tribal people. They demonstrated a sense of forgiveness, that there really was a different way to live than violence and hatred and death. And eventually, the tribal people, not all of them, but many came to embrace following Jesus and they quit spearing each other and other people to death. And so Elisabeth went on and she wrote dozens of books and spoke all over the world and became quite an icon in the second half of the 20th century among believers around the world. But this book is just about her early years when she was a young woman and she was on this journey of tragedy and wreck and ruin and how God shaped her into His person. That's why it's called Becoming Elisabeth Elliot. And that's something we're all on that journey, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right.

Ellen Vaughn: We're all becoming.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Right. Well, and I, I love her story. And, of course, I have also followed her for years and read her books. But I'm curious, Ellen, this is an authorized biography. Okay, so explain why that is different from just a regular biography. And who was it that asked you to write it?

Ellen Vaughn: Well, it's certainly an honor to be entrusted with the family papers, if you will. I was approached through my agent by Elisabeth Elliot's closest friend, her best friend, and also Elisabeth Elliot's daughter, Valerie. And evidently I somehow passed muster with them and was given Elisabeth Elliot's journals. There are a lot of her papers that are available to anyone, but also these journals, they really tell the inside story of a woman who seemed on the outside, particularly as she was older, kind of severe and off-putting. But the journals are in real-time, the unfolding of that story. I just gave a thumbnail sketch of, the journals show a flesh and blood young woman really seeking out God. Who would you have me be? Give me what I need. And going through all kinds of twists and turns in her life. So it was really Val and her husband, Elisabeth's daughter Val, and her husband drove a truck full of all these private papers of Elisabeth Elliot to my house.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow!

Ellen Vaughn: And dropped them all off. I wish you could be here in my office with me. It's full of these historic documents that tell a story that's just for geeks like us, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Exactly. What a valuable treasure.

Ellen Vaughn: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Okay, so just, Ellen, do not light a candle in your office, please.

Ellen Vaughn: I know. I will not let the dog come in and chew up the journals.

Jennifer Rothschild: No, exactly. Well, I'm curious if the Elisabeth Elliot that you got to know through the journals was different from the Elisabeth Elliot that we've all gotten to know through her books.

Ellen Vaughn: I think she was. And as I say in the book I grew up admiring Elisabeth Elliot, heard her speak, read some of her books, and thought she was an incredibly admirable figure. But I didn't really like her much and I couldn't relate. And then as a person I found in this journal, in her journals, is someone I wish the public had known more because it's someone who is very relatable, very funny, very witty, very, she had all kinds of crazy thoughts, the kind of thoughts we all have in our heads but we don't usually say.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, yes.

Ellen Vaughn: Yeah, yeah. So she was fun. And I don't know that fun is the word that most people would use thinking of Elisabeth Elliot, most of us think of.

Jennifer Rothschild: No, I wouldn't think so. But you know what I think is interesting for those who write too. What a heightened challenge, to be as honest, wisely honest in your manuscript, in your books that you actually publish as you are in your journals because it really would reach people in a maybe in a different way. And one of the things that I thought is interesting about Elisabeth Elliot is that during a time when there just weren't a lot of recognized women Christian leaders, she was one. And I'm curious, why do you think that is? What made her different?

Ellen Vaughn: Why was she?

Jennifer Rothschild: Why was she seen as a female leader in a time when most leaders in Christianity were men?

Ellen Vaughn: Well, there's a lot we could say about the role of women in the second half of the 20th century in Christendom. That's quite a topic. But I think because maybe the platform she had from the get-go, if you will, was one of her husband's martyrdom and her own gutsiness in going in and living among the tribe. And she had done many things on the mission field, like most other female missionaries, by the way, that men were doing. And so I think in her case, that was recognized. Also, she had a certain voice. She had a certain gravitas and quite an intellectual capacity that made her voice, even though it was female, if you will, a voice in the marketplace that both men and women listened to because her wisdom came out of a gutsy experience and it was also just so imbued with the Word of God. She was quite a biblically-based scholar.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah and biblically literate to.

Ellen Vaughn: Yes, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, you mentioned, you know, just her sheer gutsiness and grit, which is a great description of her. And I'm curious, what are some other big themes in her life that you learned about?

Ellen Vaughn: Well, there are so many and hopefully the book tells that story. Again, just to the side here, I wanted the book to be a fun story to read, not just sort of a, oh, didactic or cerebral examination of her teachings. It is not that by any means. It's her story as it unfolded. And I think she was very courageous. She was not a person who was motivated by fear, whether so, for example, that could be the fear in the jungle that she's going to be killed or she was an introvert. She really did not like being in social settings. And so that was a lifelong struggle, but she didn't allow that to dictate what she did with her life. Do you see what I'm saying?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Ellen Vaughn: What I took away was this person who had plenty of warts, as we all do, but was just out there in terms of I'm not going to be confined by cultural expectations or by what other people think, how many likes I get on social media.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Ellen Vaughn: Which didn't exist in her day, but you know what I'm saying?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Ellen Vaughn: And nor am I going to be driven by my emotions. And that's a huge one for all of us. And I think some people concluded, oh, well, Elisabeth Elliot had no emotions.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Right.

Ellen Vaughn: Easy for her to say, but that's not true. I mean, in her journals, you see this passionate, you know, untrammeled feelings pouring out like they do in all of us. But, but there was that sense of, yes, this is what I feel. But the most important question is not how I feel. Am I fulfilled? Am I comfortable? Am I confident? It was: What does God want me to do? And then she had the courage to do it.

Jennifer Rothschild: So powerful. So powerful. Well, one of my favorite books of hers is These Strange Ashes.

Ellen Vaughn: I agree. Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: I have loved that book. And so, in there I detected this underlying theme of doubt where there were times she really struggled with some doubt. So can you talk to us about how she dealt with doubt?

Ellen Vaughn: Yes because one reason I related to the book and I think a lot of readers will, is that her trajectory is one from a young woman who grew up kind of in the church and she knew all the right Christian answers and she could recite all the right verses. And she was right on the edge of legalism, just checking off the boxes. Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: Mhmm.

Ellen Vaughn: And that is, I think, something a lot of people who come to faith early on can fall into. And she was in that sense, when she's in the jungle in Ecuador and she's confronted with life and death and inexplicable loss for no apparent reason, then, yes, she had to struggle with faith. What does my faith in God look like when I'm not getting the outcomes that I expected? When, and we're not talking about her husband's martyrdom, she kind of expected that almost. I'm talking about, like you say, in These Strange Ashes, where there's a loss when you're working, serving God, beating your brains out, and then you don't understand why He doesn't bless it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Ellen Vaughn: Why He doesn't cause it to grow and become an amazing success. That's where she kind of hit the wrestling mat with God. And what I respect so much is there's a transition that I saw in her life and tried to articulate in the story in the book the transition from the dutiful checkoff the boxes, kind of Christianity all in your head young woman to a person whose heart, who's broken heart, was calling out: I will do, again, the road of obedience.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes. Right.

Ellen Vaughn: And an intimacy with Christ rather than just sort of a culturally comfortable religiosity.

Jennifer Rothschild: At the end of that book, These Strange Ashes, she tells that African legend for whom do you carry the stone.

Ellen Vaughn: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: I've always remembered it because that is that obedience for the sake of the love of Jesus and no other reason.

Ellen Vaughn: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Even though there's not an outcome. So you mentioned that she's kind of fun. You mentioned she was more emotional. Was there anything else that surprised you about the private Elisabeth Elliot?

Ellen Vaughn: Well, so many things. I think when you say the private Elisabeth Elliot, my mind goes right to the incredible paradoxes that when she lived in the jungle. I went down to the Amazon jungle and lived briefly among the tribal people. Two of the men are still alive or were still alive at the time who had killed the missionaries. But that's another story. But anyway, here you have this young, idealistic young missionary, a very private person, and she's living in a hut in the jungle that has no walls. You know, a total introvert and she's living around people who are around her 24/7. They're putting their fingers in her food. They're, you know, peering at her while she's sleeping. A very modest woman who is living with people who are absolutely naked, who would ask her all kinds of sexual questions with no compunction.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Wow.

Ellen Vaughn: And so, you know, a woman who loved, you know, a proper cup of tea in fine china, and she's in the jungle gnawing on a roasted monkey fist and throwing the bones into the jungle, you know, all these dichotomies. And she's just laughing at herself in her journals in the midst of all this. Only God could bring that to bear.

Jennifer Rothschild: Only God!

Ellen Vaughn: And so I found that surprising that someone could overcome all their natural preferences to go and serve God in some pretty radical ways.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, yeah, because when you really get down, and I just love that you were able to go to the Amazon and live there and really get a feel of what it felt like, I honestly can't imagine it. We glorify someone who wins Survivor, you know, and we think that's a big deal. This is just beyond, like you said, only God's grace. I think Elisabeth, I think her life is that picture, only God's grace. I'm curious too Ellen, after you read most of her books and all of her journals, I'm curious now if you have a favorite Elisabeth Elliot book.

Ellen Vaughn: Well, I am a big fan of her early books. I like them much more than the books she wrote later in her life. And when I, there's a volume two of the biography that will come out in the future, and so that will, that book will deal more with her later life.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, good.

Ellen Vaughn: I like the books like you, These Strange Ashes, The Savage My Kinsman. In those books, I feel like that's the essential Elisabeth Elliot. That's the voice, and unafraid to ask hard questions.

Jennifer Rothschild: Is that why you like them better? And I'm not asking you to be critical, of course. But what is the market difference between the earlier books and the later books?

Ellen Vaughn: Well, I'd have to study the later books to answer that. Well, I do think what I love in the early books is this: again, what I just said, that the sense that she was going to ask questions that weren't often asked in conventional Christian writings at the time.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that.

Ellen Vaughn: Also that early novel that she wrote.

Jennifer Rothschild: I'm not familiar with that.

Ellen Vaughn: Right and, of course, now that we're talking about it, I've forgotten the name.

Jennifer Rothschild: You can't remember the name. It's okay. We will have it in the show notes. We will definitely have it in the show notes.

Ellen Vaughn: Yes do that.

Jennifer Rothschild: So here's another question that I'm curious about, because I believe most of us, Ellen, read books about other people autobiographically. So I'm curious, as you wrote someone's biography, you know, there had to be a little bit of an autobiographical resonance for you. So I'm curious, what did you personally most relate to in Elisabeth Elliot's life or what did you learn about yourself as you learned Elisabeth's life?

Ellen Vaughn: Oh, well, that's a great question. Any time you write a book as a believer, it's an organic process and the Holy Spirit accomplishes things inside of you that you did not anticipate as you interact with the material. And in this book in particular, the most obvious way I could answer your question is as God would have it, as I'm reading all these early journals and getting started and in the writing process of this book, my husband is very rare, very nasty, very aggressive. brain cancer recurred. And so I was reading Elizabeth's journals as my husband had emergency massive brain surgery as he almost died, as he's in a long, long rehabilitation and recovery. And I would be reading these journals in operating room waiting rooms or ICU units, reading about Elisabeth's reactions to Jim's death, even as the death of my own husband wasn't just theoretical but imminent, it seemed.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, yes.

Ellen Vaughn: And even today, as he continues to have little brain tumors and the cancer keeps attacking, I found that the same, in the process of writing this book, the same truths that that held Elisabeth Elliot on the rock of her faith have held me during times that have been very turbulent and upside down. And so there's something about her story where there are truths embedded there that are transferable, and my hope was that those would transfer to readers as well, that whatever it is we're going through, this God that Elisabeth Elliot knew, that she obeyed in some very wild ways is also right with us. And whether it's all the craziness of COVID or the incredibly polarized and chaotic times in which we live, God is with us and He can be trusted to hold us up in the midst of chaos.

K.C. Wright: I feel as if I have two new friends, Elisabeth and Ellen.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: And may God's healing and favor be on Ellen's husband.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

K.C. Wright: In Jesus' name!

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes and Amen. You know, Ellen has really given Christendom a gift in this book. And stay tuned, people, because she is planning a volume two on the second part of Elisabeth's life. And on the show notes, when you go there, I will connect you to Ellen so that you can find out when the next book will come out. But it will also connect you to the Becoming Elisabeth Elliot book. Oh, my goodness. And it'll also connect you to some of the other books that she and I talked about, you know, like These Strange Ashes and the fiction one that we couldn't remember the name of. Well, of course, I checked with the all knowing Google, and it is called No Graven Image. So I'll have a link to that. Also, we're going to have links to everything, plus a way to stay in touch with us here at the 4:13 and with Miss Ellen Vaughn at 413podcast.com/141.

K.C. Wright: Well, this has been a really interesting and, oh, so inspiring. And I jotted down Ellen's last thoughts because I want to repeat them as we say goodbye today. She said this, "Whatever it is that we are going through, this God that Elisabeth Elliot knew, that she obeyed, is also right with us. And He can be trusted to hold us up in the midst of chaos."

Jennifer Rothschild: Good word.

K.C. Wright: He will our 4:13'ers.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, He will.

K.C. Wright: So remember, whatever you face and however you feel right now, you can do all things through Christ, who gives you supernatural strength.

Jennifer Rothschild: I can. I can. Everybody can.

K.C. Wright: I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: We all can. Thanks. This was so great, you guys. Wasn't it so good? Didn't you just, I know you're not necessarily a huge reader of biographies.

K.C. Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: But doesn't this sound like one you want to read.

K.C. Wright: Oh, yeah. I want to listen to this whole podcast again, for sure. And I want this book.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's just fascinating.

K.C. Wright: It is. It's just so encouraging and inspiring.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Yeah.