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This service is intended for Wheaton College students, faculty and staff; people who live in convenient driving range to campus; or people who will be visiting Wheaton's campus. Every month, this Bulletin Board will announce a new document or set of documents that are available for viewing and study in the Archives Reading Room on the 3rd floor of the Graham Center. Come on over and have a look!

June 1998: The Auca Martyrs of 1956

Stamps commerating the slain missionaries, issued by the Ecuador government. From Collection 277.

At the beginning of 1956, Americans were shocked to read that five American missionaries, James Elliot, Pete Fleming, T. Edward McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian, had been murdered in the jungles of Ecudar while trying to make an intital contact with the Indian people called the Auca. The dramatic death of these five young men at the very start of their work made a deep impression on American Evangelicals and over the next generation influenced many to become overseas missionaries or enter other types of Christian work. Others were moved by the story of how a church was started among the Auca (or more accuretely, the Huaoni) people through the efforts of Jim Elliot's wife Elizabeth and Nate Saint's sister Rachael.
The Archives contains many collections with information about the five missionaires, their deaths, the work among the Huaoni people and the influence of the stiry of these events on American Christans. Click to see a list of the collections of material on the story five missionaries, available in the BGC Archives.


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Last Revised: 6/1/98
Expiration: indefinite

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