Correspondence and clippings received or created by the Elliots, who were parents of the missionary Jim Elliot. Most of the collection consists of letters from Jim Elliot to his parents and/or other members of his family, although there are also numerous letters from his parents to him and letters from other correspondents, such as Elisabeth Elliot (Jim’s wife), Ed and Marilou McCully, Marj Saint, and Barbara Youderian. The letters describe contemporaneously Jim Elliot’s student years at Wheaton College, preparation for missionary service, courtship and marriage to Elisabeth, work as a Plymouth Brethren missionary in Ecuador, leading up to the death of himself and four other missionaries as they attempted to reach the Waorani Indians, called by their enemies the Auca. Throughout all the correspondence a major theme is Elliot’s description of his devotional and theological thoughts and his spiritual development. There are also many observations on Christian culture in the United States and Ecuador, the realities of missionary life, and the Quechua and Waorani people.