Life story: Christian missionary Bert Elliot ministered to Peruvians for 62 years

Published: Saturday, March 24, 2012, 1:00 PM   Updated: Saturday, March 24, 2012, 5:40 PM

Bert Elliot's younger brother, Jim, is a hero in evangelical circles. He and four other Christian missionaries died in 1956, killed by Ecuadorean natives whose previous encounters with outsiders often ended in death. The story made headlines in newspapers and magazines, inspired books, films and generations of Christian missionaries. But at the time, Jim's death made Bert, a missionary on furlough from Peru, grapple with a difficult question. 

"Why doesn't God take care of us?" he remembered asking. "If we give our lives to serve him, how come there's not the protection?" The answer that came to him then became the hallmark of his own life. "It's in dying that we're born to eternal life," he said. "It's not maintaining our lives, but it's giving our lives." So a few months later, Bert Elliot and his wife, Colleen, returned to the jungles of Peru. 

Herbert "Bert" Elliot died Feb. 17 at his home in Trujillo, Peru. He was 87 and had ministered to Peruvians for 62 years. His death, the result of an infection that did not respond to antibiotics, was less dramatic than his brother's, but every bit as inspiring, according to those who knew him. 

Randy Alcorn, a Christian author and founder of Eternal Perspective Ministries, based in Sandy, met the Elliot's in 2006 and remembers Bert describing his brother as "a great meteor, streaking through the sky." 

"Bert didn't go on to describe himself," Alcorn wrote in a Feb. 19 blog post, "but I will. Unlike his brother, Jim, the shooting star, Bert was a faint star that rose night after night, faithfully crossing the same path in the sky, to God's glory." 

Luis Palau, an international evangelist based in Oregon, said the Elliot's have established 150 congregations in Peru, something of a record for one missionary couple. "Bert didn't want to talk about it," Palau recalls. "But I said to him, 'Nobody knows you, and your brother is a famous hero.' And Bert said, 'I'd rather not be a hero.'" 

Elliot was born Nov. 3, 1924, in Portland, the second of four children. He graduated from Benson Polytechnic High School in 1943 and registered as a conscientious objector during World War II. He was a student at what was then Multnomah Bible College when a visiting missionary from Peru challenged him to "get married and go on a mission," says his nephew by marriage, Gilbert Gleason, pastor of Portland's Grace Bible Fellowship, which has helped sponsor the missionary couple for six decades. 

Elliot married Colleen Collison in January 1949, and six months later they arrived in Peru. They established a jungle ministry, navigating rivers or climbing mountains to visit villages where she offered basic medical care and he developed a knack for pulling teeth. 

"He wasn't a dentist, but the people were in agony," Palau says. Colleen Elliot remembered those early days. 

"Bert would seat the patient in an ordinary wooden chair and look at the tooth," she said. "Then he'd come into the bedroom where I was. He'd look at a medical book, decide where he was going to put the Novocain, and then we'd both get down on our knees and pray." 

In 1988, the couple settled in Trujillo, where they started a church and established a school that serves about 250 students in grades one through 12. They named the Colegio Christiano Elliot for Bert's brother, Jim. 

Elliot is survived by his wife; a sister, Jane Hawthorne of Wheaton, Ill.; and eight nieces and nephews. 

A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. March 31 at Mt. Scott Church of God, 10603 S.E. Henderson St., Portland. Remembrances may be contributions to Grace Bible Fellowship to support Peruvian church leaders.