1983 May/June issue Part 3

How can i say thanks?

Wonderful letters have come from many of you, expressing appreciation from the newsletter. "Who'd want to read an Elisabeth Elliot Newsletter?" I had asked, and you have cheered me immensely. Sometimes writing seems like dropping pebbles down a gopher hole- 'disappeared without a trace." But if a gopher pops up now and then, you know a pebble touched. Thank you, from my heart. A lady in Florida said she would love to hear about Valerie and of the other families of the men killed in Ecuador 1956. "We still have the life magazine from that year," she said.
The epilogue to the 25th- anniversary edition of my book Through Gates of Splendor includes recent news and photographs of the families.
Valerie is now 28, wife of Walter D. Shepard, Jr., pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Laural, Mississippi. They have three children. Five-year-old Walter told me last summer that the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was "to be a good brother." Elisabeth. at age three, is direct, decisive, and daring. Shortly after her third birthday she climbed behind the wheel of a large van, turned the ignition key, shifted from "park" to "drive", and drove down a steep hill. Val and friend watched (helplessly) but prayed (effectively). "He shall give His angels charge over thee..." Those assigned to Elisabeth must be especially nimble and attentive. There was very minor damage to the van, none at all to Elisabeth or to the two children who were passengers. One of them was Christiana, Elisabeth's six-month-old sister. The other was a seven-year-old boy who had gotten into the van to talk to Elisabeth. A recent phone call from Val reported that Christiana is now walking and trying very hard, with long sentences in original gibberish, and with much intonation and body language, to talk. She was a year old on December 29.