Faith on Display

For decades, Christians around the world have looked up to Elisabeth Elliot.

Now, a traveling museum exhibit is bringing the late missionary, author and radio host’s legacy to life for a whole new generation of Biola students — including her own great-granddaughter, Valerie Martin.

Housed in Biola’s library through May 2026 courtesy of the Museum of the Bible, “Through Gates of Splendor: The Elisabeth Elliot Story” is a collection of artifacts, photos and publications that chronicle Elliot’s life in ministry, with a focus on her Bible translation work in the Amazon rainforest among the very people who killed her husband.

For Valerie, the familiar photos and stories have brought fresh inspiration to her studies as a sophomore art student in Biola’s Torrey Honors College.

“Being someone who grew up with her legacy constantly in my mind, I’ve been reminded in many different ways of the way that she served the Lord,” Valerie said during a recent visit to the exhibit.

Elliot was a prolific author and speaker whose story of radical forgiveness has inspired generations. After her husband, Jim Elliot, was killed by a remote Ecuadorian tribe in 1956 — 70 years ago this January — she responded by learning their language and living among them as a missionary and Bible translator. She went on to write more than 20 books, teach college and seminary students, and host a daily radio program, Gateway to Joy.

Valerie has only faint childhood memories of meeting her great-grandmother before Elliot’s death in 2015. Even so, she was shaped by Elliot’s life and legacy from a young age, she said.

“I grew up with my mom telling me stories about her, and my grandmother, too,” she said. “I would go to my grandmother’s house and see things from Ecuador everywhere, and she would tell me all of these wonderful stories.”

Valerie, who came to Biola from England, was drawn to the university in part by the encouragement of her aunt and uncle, Sarah (Shepard, B.S. ’16) and Joshua Ibanez (B.S. ’14), both of whom graduated to pursue careers in the medical field. Now in her second year as an art student focusing on illustration and animation, Valerie said she’s grateful for Biola’s Christian community and for opportunities like the Cook Missions Conference, which have strengthened her desire to follow in her great-grandmother’s commitment to the spread of the gospel.

“Her story is so inspiring to me, and I’ve always wanted to follow in that in some way,” Valerie said. “I’ve slowly started to realize that I can use my art to do that.”

As she continues her Biola journey, Valerie hopes her art and life will reflect not only her family’s legacy but her love for God — an impact the exhibit itself aims to inspire.

“I really just want to share light,” she said. “And I think Jim and Elisabeth have been really crucially influential in the way I look forward to using my art to minister to people.”

Though Jim and Elisabeth Elliot didn’t study at Biola, two of their fellow missionaries did. A section of the current exhibit includes tributes to Ed McCully (’52) and Olive Fleming (’54), graduates of Biola’s School of Missionary Medicine who joined in the evangelization efforts in Ecuador. McCully, along with Fleming’s husband, Pete, were among the five missionaries killed alongside Jim in 1956.