V. Raymond Edman was president of Wheaton College (1940-1965), where three of the five men had attended as students. He knew them, as well as Elisabeth Elliot. Edman had served as a missionary in Ecuador and was visiting missionaries in Peru when he heard about the incident.

He was deeply moved, and was prominent in leading American evangelicals to share his perception of the importance of Elliot, McCully, Saint, Fleming and Youderian as modern Christian martyrs who died advancing the faith. Along with Clyde Taylor and other Christian leaders, Edman established the Five Missionary Martyrs Fund in February 1956 to raise money for the education of the men's nine children. (Edman served as the chairman of the fund.) He arranged for dormitories and an athletic field on Wheaton’s campus to be named after Elliot, Saint, and McCully. He also baptized Dayuma when she visited the United States with Rachael Saint in 1957-1958. He often wrote and spoke about the meaning of the deaths of the five men until his own death in 1967.