Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot
Week 6: Chapters 8–9 — 'The Silence'
Read Chapters 8 and 9 of Through Gates of Splendor. Key Scripture: Job 1:20-22; Romans 8:28.
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Sunday, January 8, 1956 — the radio goes silent. These chapters recount the agonizing days when the wives waited, the search parties went out, and the world learned what had happened on the banks of the Curaray River. Read slowly.
Discussion Questions
7 questions1.Elliot reconstructs the timeline of the silence with painful precision — the missed radio call, the growing unease, the search. How did she and the other wives respond in those first hours and days? What sustained them?
2.When the search party found the bodies, the news had to be communicated to five wives who were already bracing for the worst. What aspects of Elliot's account of that moment affected you most deeply?
3.Job responds to catastrophic loss by worshipping: 'The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' How did the wives' responses in these chapters reflect (or fail to reflect) that posture? And what does it cost a person to say those words and mean them?
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