These Strange Ashes Author:Elisabeth Elliot "A different time, a different place. The feeling of the mighty Andes looming in the sun 20,000 feet above us; the vast Pacific lying endless to the west; the mud and wetness and warmth; the mist that closed us round in the small clearing; the giant trees on all sides . . . ; the apricot moon, the tree frogs, the creaking old house that swayed w... more »hen anyone walked across the floor--these were the backdrop to my first year of missionary work." So begins Elisabeth Elliot's deeply personal, sometimes dramatic, other times quiet story of a young single woman's first missionary experience deep in the forests of Ecuador. These Strange Ashes is more than the remarkable sharing of a year in the life of a dedicated Christian missionary. It is an insider's look at why a person becomes a missionary in the first place, a searching reflection on the great questions of life, and a memorable testimony to the realities of authentic Christian commitment. Here too is the story of three other young women missionaries far from home, of the relationships among themselves and with the Colorado Indians--peaceful, tolerant, yet utterly aloof--to whom they were sent. The challenge was clear and seemingly impossible: to bring the Gospel to a people with no written language and who lived scattered throughout the dark forests. "But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness, This baffling sense of loss? Son, was the anguish of my stripping less Upon the torturing cross?" --Amy Carmichael« less