A Chance to Die Elisabeth Elliot (electronic reader .txt) 📖

Pressure? Yes, naturally there was pressure. Spiritually there was always that higher view (not always clearly perceived), that purer air (not always deeply inhaled), which drew her. She saw the facts of life in her own torrid and dusty corner of South India as the very context in which God wanted to make her more than conqueror. Here and nowhere else she would prove Him, here, in the vicissitudes and exigencies of the work assigned. Her Lord too had “learned obedience.” In a poor village home, in a carpenter shop, on the torrid and stony roads of Palestine, she found His footprints and kept following.

During one of the worst of the financial crunches a sum of money was sent to them under a misapprehension. Amy’s conscience would not allow her to keep it. Twice she returned it, twice the secretary of the society that had made the grant sent it back to her. Finally he kept it, “as you apparently have more money than you know what to do with.” They had no ready cash for the large quantities of grain and stores they needed. The logbook notes that they prayed for it on March 1. On March 2 a friend wrote, recalling that she had been about to take a nap when “something or someone” said, No, you have put it off for two days. Go and do it at once, and she sent off forty pounds in rupees. She had no idea she was mailing God’s refund.

In the fall of 1921 a story began which held all the elements of drama so dear to Amy’s heart—another sally into enemy territory, a struggle with forces of spiritual evil, contact with a human soul torn by moral contradictions. He was Raj, a famous outlaw, chief of a band of brigands. His name had been in the newspapers for his exploits—several escapes from police, the return of handcuffs: “Take these iron bangles back to the police,” he told his guard, “for to that place do they belong.” He was kind to children, old people, and the poor, brave and daring as Robin Hood, a sportsman through and through. What might not the energies of such a man, turned in a different direction, accomplish for the Kingdom of God? Amy’s imagination was kindled.

She asked the coolies who worked for her in the forest if there might be a chance of meeting Raj. None whatever, they said. Nothing stopped her from putting Raj into her prayers, and one day she had gone to see some fields she thought of buying when suddenly, from behind nearby rocks, stepped three armed men. Raj was their leader, “a clear-skinned man of medium height, immensely strong apparently, and every inch an athlete. The great flashing eyes glowed like black fires under the bushy black eyebrows; but as the talk turned from point to point they lost their smouldering fires and softened or filled with humor.”

“See, we have tea here, and bread,” said Amy, opening her trusty tea basket, and they sat down together.

“There are unseen doors that lead out of the familiar landscape of life into another entirely unknown. Such a door opened then. And we walked straight through and did not know it.”

For two years her letters were full of Raj. He had been falsely accused, had fled when he received a summons, returned because of his wife and children, found that he had been blackmailed, and fled again. His wife died of the shock. He asked Amy to care for his little children. When the police trapped him at last, Amy found herself in “a battle against the cruel powers of hell.” She was allowed occasional visits. Once she dreamed that the gates opened of their own accord, and when she arrived at the Palamcottah prison the dream came true. She walked straight into the ward and asked, “Do you wish to be baptized?” His answer was yes, and a bishop friend, compelled by Amy’s testimony of Raj’s honesty and the miracle of the gates, baptized him and his cohort.

No more visits were allowed, so Amy was shut up to prayer. When she learned that he had escaped again she blamed herself—had she not instructed him clearly, had she failed him somehow? She prayed that he would “depart from iniquity.” Apparently he did. Attacks were sometimes attributed to him for which impersonators were responsible. Would he come back, give himself up, lead an honorable life? She kept a light burning at night in hopes of his return.

By June of 1923 the police found themselves in a very embarrassing position. As many as three hundred armed men, under the command of two Englishmen, had searched for Raj. All efforts had come to nothing and the policemen’s jobs were at stake. The last ditch was a humiliating possibility—might a woman succeed? They asked the missionary lady if she would try to persuade Raj to surrender. She had tried at every meeting, without success, and thenceforward had directed her energies solely to prayer. But the official request galvanized her to action once more. The challenge of seeing a notorious criminal not only choose to face justice but to be known as a Christian was worth any risk. A rendezvous was arranged. Thankful for the brown eyes she had once besought God to exchange for blue ones, she stained her face and hands, put on her darkest sari, and was led through the moonless jungle.

“‘There will be a sign soon.’ The words came like a breath from a shadow on the outer wall of the little room where she waited.” (Her book Raj, Brigand Chief is told in the third person.) “For an hour the shadow stood and did not stir, then from the jungle outside came a low call like the call of a night bird; a soft whistle answered. ‘They are near,’ breathed the shadow, and a silent guide led Carunia through ways unknown to her, till, like a patch of denser darkness, she saw