The Week Marches On...

The graduation is over, the honorary doctorate has been bestowed, and Bert and Colleen remain unruffled by all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding such an honor. Its been a busy week, with tomorrow bringing the Open House celebration. It will be a little bit like Heaven, I'm thinking, greeting so many we haven't seen for some time.

I am sharing what was read about the Elliots before the doctorate was bestowed. It is long, and my main reason for posting it in its entirety, was so family and friends could see it. (I know I could have emailed it, but somehow, having it on my blog is a good way to remember it.)

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Western Seminary’s Board of Trustees has the privilege of granting honorary degrees to individuals whose Christian service has been especially meritorious, and whose life and ministry epitomize what Western desires for its graduates. The recipient of this year’s honorary doctoral degree is Herbert Elliot.

In 1949, Bert and his wife Colleen arrived in Peru as newlyweds. There they implemented a church planting strategy that used their medical/dental training and evangelistic abilities to bring the gospel to many remote communities along major jungle rivers such as the Amazon.

In 1956, following the death in Ecuador of Bert’s younger brother Jim, the Elliots expanded their ministry to the mountains of Peru. This required additional adjustments to both a new culture and a new approach to ministry. For the next 30 years, they developed a network of churches in both the Peruvian jungle and mountains.

Bert and Colleen made yet another major ministry shift in 1988 when they moved to the coastal city of Trujillo. Due largely to their ministry (in partnership with Western graduates Jorge and Donna Osorio), the church known as Centro Biblico Trujillo has become a major church planting and missionary sending center. In addition, the Elliots founded the Jim Elliot Christian School, which currently offers a K-12 education to about 250 students.

No human can fully recognize the amount of heavenly good that has been achieved through the Elliots’ sixty years of faithful ministry. Yes, we can count the 115 churches that were planted; but we can only guess how many comprise the multitude of lives that were transformed directly and indirectly through Bert and Colleen’s ministry.

What makes this impact all the more incredible is recognizing the many challenges the Elliots faced in Peru, from contracting diseases associated with jungle life and medical work to opposition from cocaine dealers and Marxist terrorists.

When Randy Alcorn concluded his chapter in a recent volume entitled, Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, he used Bert and Colleen Elliot as his final example of long lives well-lived. After recounting a conversation he had with Bert that contrasted the ministry of the two Elliot brothers, Randy pens these words: “While Jim’s relatively short life was like a meteor that blazed dramatically across the sky, Bert’s life is more like a faint star that rises night after night and faithfully crosses the same path in the sky, largely unnoticed on earth.”

Bert, we have noticed that star; and in honoring you, we recognize that we are at the same time honoring Colleen, and ultimately the Lord whom you both have so faithfully served.

So, in recognition of his distinguished ministry in significantly advancing the cause of Christ (especially in the realm on global mission), Western Seminary is delighted to confer the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree upon Herbert Elliot.