It was a story that shook the world. In the autumn of 1955 five young men had dared to make contact with a Stone Age tribe deep in the jungles of Ecuador. The goal: to establish communication with a people whose only previous response to the outside world had been to attack all strangers.

The men’s mission combined modern technology with innate ingenuity, sparked by a passionate determination to get the gospel to a people without Christ.

After several preliminary overtures of friendship, the men set out on a crucial January day in 1956 for a meeting with the Waorani tribesman, who had reacted with apparent tolerance to earlier gifts and messages.

The story of Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Pete Fleming, and Jim Elliot was recorded several months later by Jim’s wife, Elisabeth. Through Gates of Splendor has since become a classic, one that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people.