Six very young, very inexperienced and very idealistic, first-year students at Gordon Conwell

Seminary, at which I was one, are preparing to go to Kenya East Africa for three months.

In preparation for that, we took the month of May to do some study and to hear some people

to order to be prepared to go on the field.

One of the people we made the mistake of inviting was Mrs. Elizabeth Elliot Leach.

I say a mistake because she didn't say what we wanted to hear.

She mentioned two things specifically.

The first thing she sat down was to say,

Don't think the Africans need Christ any more than you do.

That was a hard proposition to get rid of.

The second thing she said was, don't think you can do anything unique that the African

couldn't do.

That is about shot down all of our reasons for going.

You were very shocked at that, but it was true.

And it wasn't very popular, but it was true. And her visit probably helped me more to prepare

for that trip than anything else. In one of the books she's written, which I turned about a

week and a half ago when I was feeling kind of low and wondering when on earth I was going to be a

mature Christian, if ever.

And I thought, well, now I'll turn to the liberty of obedience.

And I'll search that book and see what she has to say.

Surely in there, there must be some inkling as to when I will be mature.

And I quote, No policy can encompass and advance the difficult paths to which God may lead a soul to maturity.

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