Is the proverb “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose” as applicable to the life long-lived as it is to the young martyr? Jim Elliot, the young martyr who authored that statement, had a little-known older brother whose life also epitomized this quote. Bert and Colleen Elliot gave their lives to a far-reaching itinerate ministry in Northern Peru, planting more than 150 churches over a 62-year span.
Bert and Colleen met as teenagers and experienced a love that lasted a lifetime. They married on a cold, wintry day in Portland, Oregon in January 1949. Three months later they set sail for Peru which at that time was very much a pioneer setting. Initially, they settled in the jungle town of Lagunas on the Huallaga River. Several years later they relocated upriver to Yurimaguas and started an extensive ministry to many of the small villages up and down the river, planting churches in each as people responded to the good news of Jesus Christ.
They were in Portland in January 1956 when Bert’s younger brother Jim was martyred along with his four missionary friends in Ecuador. That event intensified their commitment to give their all to reach the people of northern Peru. Upon returning to Peru, they were presented with the opportunity to minister in the mountain and coastal regions. That began a rotation of spending half the year in the jungle and the other half in the mountains and on the coast.
Eventually, they moved to the coastal city of Trujillo where they helped build a church that embraced the vision of continuing a church planting movement. They also founded a Christian school.
Their story is told by their nephew, Gilbert Gleason, in Love So Amazing: The Missionary Biography of Bert and Colleen Elliot.