Exposing Our Children to Heroes

(The Multigenerational Blessing and Impact of Biblical Hospitality)

“Getting to know, respect and love Bob and Keitha” —Jim Elliot (from The Journals of Jim Elliot, June 30, 1952)

Our family, too, came to “know, respect and love Keitha Wittig—“Miss Keitha”—as we called her. Tall, stylish and near 90 when we met her, Miss Keitha, a retired missionary to Ecuador, was a faithful member of our church. We had heard “bits and snippets” of her life story…some connection to the young missionaries martyred by the Auca Indians in the late 1950s…involvement in HCJB Christian radio…and a frequent reference to her late husband’s relocating a power plant from Washington state to Quito, Ecuador. (How does one do that!) So we called her up and invited her to dinner. When extending the invitation, I specifically asked if she would share with our children the story of God’s faithfulness in her life.

After dinner, we all gathered in the family room with a roaring fire and watched Through the Gates of Splendor, a documentary narrated by Elisabeth Elliot that chronicled the martyrdom of five American missionaries by the savage Auca Indians of Ecuador, and the subsequent conversion of some of them to Christ.

Miss Keitha watched with rapt attention, “That’s my kitchen—there, that was our home! Jim courted Elisabeth there at my kitchen table…” You see, Keitha’s husband, a missionary pilot, had served the same mission station as Nate Saint, who was home on furlough in 1952.

“It fell to my husband to welcome the young missionaries to the jungle,” she explained. “He became sort of a ‘father figure’ to them. When we heard of their murder, we were back in the States on furlough. We couldn’t believe it. ‘Lord,’ I prayed, ‘Why would you take those young men—the brightest and the best—and leave all those young children?’”

As she talked, her voice trailed off and her gaze seemed distant, as if reliving the events of a half century before. Needless to say, our children were spellbound. They had heard the stories of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and the others, but Miss Keitha was right there at their table and she had known them and even questioned their deaths!

“But after all these years,” she continued, “and after seeing so many of the ways that God has used the deaths of those young men to further His will, I trust him more.”

Selah. It was a wonderful evening.

Looking back, I believe the evening was a blessing to Miss Keitha as well. Her eyes sparkled as she proudly recounted the story of her late husband finding an abandoned power plant while home in the states on furlough, of getting it donated, disassembling it, shipping it to Ecuador and reassembling it there where it was gratefully put to use. It also built a bond between her and our family having her in our home. She often asks how we are doing and tells us she is thinking of us.

There are many people in our lives and churches with stories to tell. These are the testimonies I wanted my children to hear, the testimonies of those who have lived long and struggled and in the end, concluded, “I trust Him more.”

These are the testimonies your children will grow up with when you intentionally invite godly men and women into your home and ask them to tell their stories. We attended a small church, and yet, we had opportunity, over and over again, to hear stories of God’s faithfulness.

Romans 12:13
Practice!