Elisabeth Elliot Memorial Service Video - A Loving Tribute

This video is a loving tribute to Elisabeth Elliot. In God’s wonderful Providence, her daughter Valerie was a Freshman at Wheaton the same year as I. Even more incredibly, we became best friends and roommates and bridesmaids for each other! How I cherish the wonderful peeks I had up close to Elisabeth over the years. After I “got over myself” around her (Elisabeth), and tried to be my real self, my appreciation of her wit, her devotion to God, and her complex simplicity grew to near Olympian proportions. And that’s my point…although she lived through some of life’s most incredible and difficult circumstances, her compass remained pointed to True North.
When my father passed away in 2001, I did a video for his funeral which Val saw at a later date. At that time, she asked if I would do the same for her mother when the time came for it. On June 15th, her dear mother was released from her long slow decline (the same day as my dear Mom, four years earlier!) and is presently singing with all the saints and angels at the feet of Jesus! I put together this video as a loving tribute to a life…well-lived.
I can’t take all the credit for it. This wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible assistance of Jan Wismer, who slogged through many versions with me, offering excellent perspectives and helpful editing suggestions. Additionally, she went into her personal archives of significant sound-offerings of Elisabeth from over the years and sent me many of the ones I used. I thank Vision Video for permission to use footage from “Through Gates of Splendor.” To Linda Meyers, Kea Hufford for their submissions. Of course, the Shepard kids, (Walter, Elisabeth, Christiana, Jim, Colleen, Evangeline, Theo & Sarah) for sharing from their personal scrapbooks lovingly made by their Granny. To my DH (dear husband) Cliff, for being so supportive during this intense period of gathering and editing! That includes Walt Shepard, Val’s DH, too! And finally, to my exceptional and dear friend Valerie… Thank you for entrusting me to distill a small part of your mother’s legacy into this tribute. As Elisabeth herself said many, many times…To God Be The Glory.