Meet Enrique, a very special Southern Rockhopper Penguin living a long and happy life at the Saint Louis Zoo. At 30 years old, Enrique is an elder statesman of the penguin world, but with age came a common challenge: arthritis. The dedicated team at the Saint Louis Zoo knew they needed an innovative solution to keep their beloved bird comfortable and active, ensuring he could continue enjoying his days with his mate, Paris, and his lively colony.
That’s where a truly heartwarming story begins. Thanks to clever thinking and custom-made shoes designed to protect his feet and provide extra padding, Enrique is once again active, swimming, and happily social. This remarkable example of dedication from zoo veterinarians and keepers showcases the lengths to which they go to provide the best possible life for every animal under their care, even inspiring other zoos to find unique solutions for their own feathered friends.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
00:00:10
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything on this show, and we love your story. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Here’s some of our favorites. Today you’re going to hear from Maria Elvin, is the zoological manager of birds, is Saint Louis Zoo. He’ll be speaking on behalf of Enrique, a thirty-year-old penguin with arthritis who just so happens to wear shoes. Enrique is a Southern Rockhopper Penguin, and he is an elderly bird. He’s about thirty years old. Penguins tend to live about fifteen years old. Penguins that live in zoos live a very cushy life. He’s just a gentle bird. He is really easygoing. That’s unlike Rockhoppers a little bit. Rockhoppers are very vivacious, very in your face, but Enrique kind of has a softer side to him. He is quite the handsome little bird. He’s got a girlfriend, and apparently, as we found out this morning, another female liked what she saw, so this morning he had two girlfriends. Enrique came to Saint Louis Zoo in 2016, and he prior to that had lived at Omaha Zoo. Zoos talk to each other a lot, and before any zoo receives any animal, there is a lot of communication. What does the animal like, what does it not like, behaviors that are good, and maybe some that are not so good. And the veterinarians also receive a lot of information about medical history. He had signs of arthritis already at that point, and so there was no surprise. We didn’t just open a box of penguins and see that one wasn’t feeling well. We knew what we were getting, and we were prepared, and that’s super important with arthritis. You notice that they’re slowing down a little bit, maybe not coming up for food just as fast, maybe wait for some of the more spry neighbors to run up to the food first. And our keepers are really well versed in not only general bird behavior, but we hone in on the individuals, too. So when one is feeling off a little bit, we know right away. Enrique is an active swimmer, and that’s great, but we couldn’t have any topical creams that alleviate some of the arthritic pain. They will kind of rinse away. So thinking outside the box can help us. I think animal people are a special group of people where very few things surprise us because we have to think outside out of the box. So often. With humans, an arm as an arm and a leg as a leg, but with animals there’s so much variation. Our veterinary team, who are really great at coming up with all sorts of ideas, found a company that makes little shoes for working dogs and dogs that just need additional help after injuries. So our vets were able to connect with that company. We were able to trace Enrique’s feet and get measurements, and the amazing people who can sew very well made the shoes for him. The first time we put them on, he kind of looked at his feet and looked at us and then took off running. What the shoes do is just to protect his feet and give a little bit of extra padding for him. The original pair that was sent, we found that he just needed a little bit more cushion, and it needed to give a little bit more grip. With Rockhopper penguins, their feet are very important. They grip the rock as they’re climbing up. But because we just put shoes on him, he couldn’t quite grip, so we ended up receiving a second pair of shoes. Now, this pair of shoes was hot pink on the bottom, as opposed to the first set of shoes, which was all black. But no one cared. A few just kind of looked. Some kind of tried to come over and check it out, but he would just tell him no. He is very vocal, and he bites. So once everyone figured out, like, he’s not going to let you mess with his shoes, he was good. He was golden. It has become such a routine for him that he really doesn’t mind, and it makes a little difference to his mate. So, we do put them on at about 10 o’clock in the morning and take them off at about 3. His mate, Paris, she just sees them go up, and he comes back, and she’s like, “Okay, this is great.” Sometimes you’ll see him with us wing over her, which is very cute. It is nice that he does get some time to just be a penguin. We really take his behavior into account. We do know that it does provide him with some comfort, just based on the way that he stands. We keep track on a weekly basis to make sure, is he eating? Is he getting around? And what we have seen is that he does swim with the boots on, too, and that’s an important factor for penguins. Penguins should swim, and he does still swim. He is still social with his mate. They preen each other all the time, and as long as he is doing those things and having a good appetite, we know that he is comfortable. Since we have tried this out, our veterinarians have been in contact with a few other zoos who asked us how it went, and they considered it for some of their penguins. So the shoes are spreading. There are a few other penguins that are getting some relief to the opportunities to enrich the lives of our animals are endless, and it really takes a lot of innovation and collaboration to continue to provide the best care for these animals. It is great that the story is getting out about Enrique and his shoes, but it is also such a minor thing for us. You know, we made him comfortable, and that was our job. There are so many other things that we do for our animals that maybe are just not quite as visible, but also have a big impact, and I just hope that the story helps the guests that visit Saint Louis Zoo see the dedication that we put into the care for all of our animals. And beautiful production work by Madison on the piece, and a special thanks to Maria Elvin, who is the zoological manager of birds at the Saint Louis Zoo. And it’s a world-class zoo. I spent many summers in my life in Saint Louis, and that was always one of my favorite days. And I don’t know many kids or adults who don’t love just visiting a zoo. If you get to Saint Louis, by all means, visit this terrific zoo. “What a thing that Maria just said. ‘We made him comfortable. That’s our job.'” Indeed, it is crafting a special bear shoes for a thirty-year-old arthritic penguin named Enrique. That story here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we’re asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of 17 dollars and 76 cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That’s OurAmericanStories.com. This is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, and we love hearing from you and your story. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. There’s some of our favorites. And every year millions of Americans take to the road in search of adventure or to just get from Point A to Point B. But for Robert Frolick, a listener from Wisconsin, his trip from his home state to Kentucky while volunteering for the Appalachian Service Project was a bit more complicated than that. Here’s Robert with the story of his bad road trip. It was about 9:30 at night when my wife looked out the window as I backed into her driveway. She was shaking her head. When I walked in the front door, I told her, “You go to bed. I need to sit and pray for a while.” Without a word, she went off to bed. My friend Jack and I had many adventures together, mostly because the word impossible was not in his vocabulary. We served in the Appalachian Service Project work missions for a few years and helped them out in other ways from time to time. This time, the project needed new trucks to haul materials from their central warehouses to the various work centers throughout the Appalachian region. Jack and I and a couple of representatives from the project went to a truck auction in Chicago to buy four used trucks that would suit the need and fit their very limited budget. We found just what we were looking for in four used U-Haul trucks. Two of them were driven immediately to Johnson City, Tennessee, while we took the remaining two back to Racine, Wisconsin. The plan was to remove the cargo boxes and then drive the two bare frame trucks back south, where they would be fitted with flatbeds for hauling lumber and building its supplies. Jack had it all figured out. His driver would drive one truck, Jack would drive the other, and I would follow in a chase car to bring us all back home again about a 1,100-mile round trip. That was the plan. God chuckled. First, Jack’s driver quick onto Plan B. It consisted of Jack and me each driving a truck, with one of us towing a car for the return trip. God giggled. Then Jack had a work obligation that could not wait. That left me. We had gone from a three-man task to two guys to one lone ranger—three to one. You’re in, “La!” Laughs were heard in Heaven. We conjured up Plan C. It called for me to drive both trucks to Corbin, Kentucky, and leave them at the truck stop. People from Appalachian Service Project will come out the next day and take the trucks from there. Then from the bus station in Corbin, I could catch a ride back to Racine. Jack obtained a saddle from somewhere. It’s a thing that allows you to pig it back one truck onto another. One afternoon, Jack and I removed the truck boxes, installed the saddle, hoisted one truck atop the other with a forklift, and cobbled together some wiring for brake lights on a towed vehicle. I remember Jack drove the rig and circles over rough ground to test the integrity of the saddle. So it was that I came home that night driving a rig that looked perilously unstable, and told my wife I would be leaving at 4 a.m. the next morning. Then I prayed, “Lord, these are your trucks, intended to serve poor people in Appalachia. Please help me get them there safely in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Leaving at 4 a.m. would get me through Chicago before the morning rush, to arrive in Corbin while it was still daylight, and to get there before the next bus departed at about 7 p.m. These Ford trucks were about twenty years old, and they were made for city driving. Equipped with a V-8 engine and a four-speed manual transmission, the trucks were stripped down basic vehicles, noisy and underpowered. Pulling out up my driveway, I headed rest of the interstate, then took my 94 South towards Chicago. There were five or six toll stations going around Chicago. After paying the first toll, I pulled off to the side of the road, perhab, the big crescent wrench and gave each and every nut on the saddle a good tightening twist. After that, I felt better. By now, however, the sun was up, and every time I looked in the rearview mirror. All I could see was the big letters D R O F. The backwards forward name was tilting gently from side to side. It was unnerving. “Why was that truck tailgating? Oh, yeah, that’s my other truck.” But other than the roaring of the engine, the spooky mirror image, and the heat, it was a nice trip. I did pull into an open way station, unsure it was necessary, but they waved me through. I drove into a truck stop for fuel, but couldn’t use the big rig pumps and had to settle for gassing up with the cars and the RVs. Later that afternoon, the Corbin exit came into view, and I pulled off the interstate and rolled into the truck stop. I found a parking spot way in the back, grabbed my bag, locked up the truck at the desk inside. I handed the keys to the clerk and told her about the pickup the next day. Then I asked, “Could you tell me how to get to the Greyhound bus station?” Since I had plenty of time, I planned to walk there. She looked at me and said, “Oh, the bus station is at the next exit off the interstate, and it was not in walking dist this. Don’t you worry, honey,” she said. “I’ll get you a ride,” and she picked up the mic and announced to one and all, “I got a trucker here.” She called me a trucker. I felt like I’d just been promoted. Up walked an amiable guy who said he was headed south, and we walked out to his tanker truck and boarded. We traded small talk about the relative merits of conventional cab versus cab-over-engine, and in no time flat we got off with the Corbin exit number two, and he drove me right up to the bus station, which was actually a gas station with a little window on the side of the building labeled Greyhound, which was closed. The guy at the gas station assured me that the window would be opened later and that the bus was due about 7 p.m. Across the road was a small diner. I ambled over and ordered the fried chicken. The bus came on time, hot, sweaty, and now queasy. I found the n aisle seat next to, what else—a very large woman. Neither of us had any desire to experience the other, which worked fine as long as we could maintain the appropriate tilt, but when sleep took over. Well, anyway, this bus was not on the express route. We visited towns with bus stations even smaller than the one we had just left, every last tiny town between Corbin, Kentucky, and Chicago, Illinois. I began to load. The sound of air brakes. It meant another stop. Around the crack of dawn, we pulled into Chicago, where I had to change buses to get home. During the wait, I tried to wash up and change in the restroom so I’d look and smell a little better. It was a wasted effort, and two hours later it pulled up in front of the Racine bus station. I called my wife and asked her to pick me help. She arrived shortly, and I got into the car. She never said a word. I don’t think she was impressed with our plan or with me. And you’ve been listening to Robert Frolick, and he’s a listener from Wisconsin. And if you have stories of your own, particularly road trip stories, we’re looking for some of those, too, especially bad road trip stories. They are particularly endearing after you’re finished with them and a year or two have passed. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Or any other stories you have—fun, sad, tragic, positive—anything you’ve got at all, send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Your stories or some of our favorites. Robert Frolick’s “Three, Two, One, You’re It!” his road trip story here on Our American Stories. And we continue here on Our American Stories. And we love to tell stories about every facet of American life. And periodically those are faith stories, because we know that faith animates so many Americans in their walk and in their day-to-day lives. Elizabeth Elliot has been described as one of the most influential Christian women of the 20th century. Let’s get right into the story. Here’s Greg Englin.
Elizabeth Elliot: “Through Gates of Splendor” is a 1957 best-selling book written by Elizabeth Elliot. Upon release, the book was so popular that it competed with John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” in terms of sales. “Through Gates of Splendor” tells the story of Operation Auca, an attempt by five American missionaries—Jim Elliot, the author’s husband; Pete Fleming; Ed McCulley Pilot; Nate Saint; and Roger Youderian, a participant at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II—to reach the Auca tribe of eastern Ecuador. All five men were killed by the tribe. In 1967, a documentary film also titled “Through Gates of Splendor” was narrated by Elizabeth Elliot herself. Thanks to the folks at Vision Video, we are about to hear this story. Here’s Elizabeth Elliot. The Republic of Ecuador, 3,000 air miles due south of New York City, is one of our friendly South American neighbor nations. Quito, its capital city, is just below the equator, 9,000 feet up in the Andes. This is where the story began. At one time or another, all of U.S. jungle missionaries stayed with Nate and Marge Saint in their rustic and thoroughly functional house. Marge managed to find time to take care of her three children and supply to jungle missionaries with everything from fresh beef and fruits to screens and nails. Whenever Nate took off with supplies, it was Marge who bought, stored, packed, wade, and even helped Nate load them into the plane. She kept his ground log, knew his position in the air, and stood by at all times with shortwave radio, whether I part got from Mctor pland over the friendly teach was with whom Jim, Pete, and Ed worked. All knew Nate’s little yellow plane and weren’t afraid of it. They even begged for rides. Even some of the well-known tribe of shrinkers called Hebrews had heard the words of the Lord Jesus from Roger and others, and some had come to believe. Nate was very ingenious. He invented a sort of pod on the wing struts which would release a parachute with supplies. When Jim and I were just married, we opened a new station at a place called Puyupungu. For five months, we had no airstrip, and Nate dropped some of our supplies to us by parachute. When the airstrip of Puyupungu finally passed Nate’s testing procedure and he made his first landing with us, we were as excited as the Indians. It gave us hopes of opening more stations, of getting around more often to visit the Indians. There was one group of Indians no one had ever visited and come out alive. They were the Aucas, feared even by neighboring Indian tribes. One day, when Nate had flown into Rahuna, where Ed Marylou lived, they decided to make another search. Everyone knew they were there somewhere in the jungle. Aucas had killed a Quechua Indian near Ed’s station only a few months before. The five fellows had talked and prayed a lot about reaching these people, but it seemed a very remote possibility until that day in September 1955, Ed and Nate were just about to turn around and fly for home when they saw the house. They didn’t see any people, but there was no question about it. It was an Auca house. Long before this, Nate had devised an air-to-ground exchange by means of a bucket suspended on a long cord.
Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything on this show, and we love your story. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Here’s some of our favorites. Today you’re going to hear from Maria Elvin, is the zoological manager of birds, is Saint Louis Zoo. He’ll be speaking on behalf of Enrique, a thirty-year-old penguin with arthritis who just so happens to wear shoes. Enrique is a Southern Rockhopper Penguin, and he is an elderly bird. He’s about thirty years old. Penguins tend to live about fifteen years old. Penguins that live in zoos live a very cushy life. He’s just a gentle bird. He is really easygoing. That’s unlike Rockhoppers a little bit. Rockhoppers are very vivacious, very in your face, but Enrique kind of has a softer side to him. He is quite the handsome little bird. He’s got a girlfriend, and apparently, as we found out this morning, another female liked what she saw, so this morning he had two girlfriends. Enrique came to Saint Louis Zoo in 2016, and he prior to that had lived at Omaha Zoo. Zoos talk to each other a lot, and before any zoo receives any animal, there is a lot of communication. What does the animal like, what does it not like, behaviors that are good, and maybe some that are not so good. And the veterinarians also receive a lot of information about medical history. He had signs of arthritis already at that point, and so there was no surprise. We didn’t just open a box of penguins and see that one wasn’t feeling well. We knew what we were getting, and we were prepared, and that’s super important with arthritis. You notice that they’re slowing down a little bit, maybe not coming up for food just as fast, maybe wait for some of the more spry neighbors to run up to the food first. And our keepers are really well versed in not only general bird behavior, but we hone in on the individuals, too. So when one is feeling off a little bit, we know right away. Enrique is an active swimmer, and that’s great, but we couldn’t have any topical creams that alleviate some of the arthritic pain. They will kind of rinse away. So thinking outside the box can help us. I think animal people are a special group of people where very few things surprise us because we have to think outside out of the box. So often. With humans, an arm as an arm and a leg as a leg, but with animals there’s so much variation. Our veterinary team, who are really great at coming up with all sorts of ideas, found a company that makes little shoes for working dogs and dogs that just need additional help after injuries. So our vets were able to connect with that company. We were able to trace Enrique’s feet and get measurements, and the amazing people who can sew very well made the shoes for him. The first time we put them on, he kind of looked at his feet and looked at us and then took off running. What the shoes do is just to protect his feet and give a little bit of extra padding for him. The original pair that was sent, we found that he just needed a little bit more cushion, and it needed to give a little bit more grip. With Rockhopper penguins, their feet are very important. They grip the rock as they’re climbing up. But because we just put shoes on him, he couldn’t quite grip, so we ended up receiving a second pair of shoes. Now, this pair of shoes was hot pink on the bottom, as opposed to the first set of shoes, which was all black. But no one cared. A few just kind of looked. Some kind of tried to come over and check it out, but he would just tell him no. He is very vocal, and he bites. So once everyone figured out, like, he’s not going to let you mess with his shoes, he was good. He was golden. It has become such a routine for him that he really doesn’t mind, and it makes a little difference to his mate. So, we do put them on at about 10 o’clock in the morning and take them off at about 3. His mate, Paris, she just sees them go up, and he comes back, and she’s like, “Okay, this is great.” Sometimes you’ll see him with us wing over her, which is very cute. It is nice that he does get some time to just be a penguin. We really take his behavior into account. We do know that it does provide him with some comfort, just based on the way that he stands. We keep track on a weekly basis to make sure, is he eating? Is he getting around? And what we have seen is that he does swim with the boots on, too, and that’s an important factor for penguins. Penguins should swim, and he does still swim. He is still social with his mate. They preen each other all the time, and as long as he is doing those things and having a good appetite, we know that he is comfortable. Since we have tried this out, our veterinarians have been in contact with a few other zoos who asked us how it went, and they considered it for some of their penguins. So the shoes are spreading. There are a few other penguins that are getting some relief to the opportunities to enrich the lives of our animals are endless, and it really takes a lot of innovation and collaboration to continue to provide the best care for these animals. It is great that the story is getting out about Enrique and his shoes, but it is also such a minor thing for us. You know, we made him comfortable, and that was our job. There are so many other things that we do for our animals that maybe are just not quite as visible, but also have a big impact, and I just hope that the story helps the guests that visit Saint Louis Zoo see the dedication that we put into the care for all of our animals. And beautiful production work by Madison on the piece, and a special thanks to Maria Elvin, who is the zoological manager of birds at the Saint Louis Zoo. And it’s a world-class zoo. I spent many summers in my life in Saint Louis, and that was always one of my favorite days. And I don’t know many kids or adults who don’t love just visiting a zoo. If you get to Saint Louis, by all means, visit this terrific zoo. “What a thing that Maria just said. ‘We made him comfortable. That’s our job.'” Indeed, it is crafting a special bear shoes for a thirty-year-old arthritic penguin named Enrique. That story here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell and love America like we do, we’re asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of 17 dollars and 76 cents is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming. That’s OurAmericanStories.com. This is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, and we love hearing from you and your story. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. There’s some of our favorites. And every year millions of Americans take to the road in search of adventure or to just get from Point A to Point B. But for Robert Frolick, a listener from Wisconsin, his trip from his home state to Kentucky while volunteering for the Appalachian Service Project was a bit more complicated than that. Here’s Robert with the story of his bad road trip. It was about 9:30 at night when my wife looked out the window as I backed into her driveway. She was shaking her head. When I walked in the front door, I told her, “You go to bed. I need to sit and pray for a while.” Without a word, she went off to bed. My friend Jack and I had many adventures together, mostly because the word impossible was not in his vocabulary. We served in the Appalachian Service Project work missions for a few years and helped them out in other ways from time to time. This time, the project needed new trucks to haul materials from their central warehouses to the various work centers throughout the Appalachian region. Jack and I and a couple of representatives from the project went to a truck auction in Chicago to buy four used trucks that would suit the need and fit their very limited budget. We found just what we were looking for in four used U-Haul trucks. Two of them were driven immediately to Johnson City, Tennessee, while we took the remaining two back to Racine, Wisconsin. The plan was to remove the cargo boxes and then drive the two bare frame trucks back south, where they would be fitted with flatbeds for hauling lumber and building its supplies. Jack had it all figured out. His driver would drive one truck, Jack would drive the other, and I would follow in a chase car to bring us all back home again about a 1,100-mile round trip. That was the plan. God chuckled. First, Jack’s driver quick onto Plan B. It consisted of Jack and me each driving a truck, with one of us towing a car for the return trip. God giggled. Then Jack had a work obligation that could not wait. That left me. We had gone from a three-man task to two guys to one lone ranger—three to one. You’re in, “La!” Laughs were heard in Heaven. We conjured up Plan C. It called for me to drive both trucks to Corbin, Kentucky, and leave them at the truck stop. People from Appalachian Service Project will come out the next day and take the trucks from there. Then from the bus station in Corbin, I could catch a ride back to Racine. Jack obtained a saddle from somewhere. It’s a thing that allows you to pig it back one truck onto another. One afternoon, Jack and I removed the truck boxes, installed the saddle, hoisted one truck atop the other with a forklift, and cobbled together some wiring for brake lights on a towed vehicle. I remember Jack drove the rig and circles over rough ground to test the integrity of the saddle. So it was that I came home that night driving a rig that looked perilously unstable, and told my wife I would be leaving at 4 a.m. the next morning. Then I prayed, “Lord, these are your trucks, intended to serve poor people in Appalachia. Please help me get them there safely in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Leaving at 4 a.m. would get me through Chicago before the morning rush, to arrive in Corbin while it was still daylight, and to get there before the next bus departed at about 7 p.m. These Ford trucks were about twenty years old, and they were made for city driving. Equipped with a V-8 engine and a four-speed manual transmission, the trucks were stripped down basic vehicles, noisy and underpowered. Pulling out up my driveway, I headed rest of the interstate, then took my 94 South towards Chicago. There were five or six toll stations going around Chicago. After paying the first toll, I pulled off to the side of the road, perhab, the big crescent wrench and gave each and every nut on the saddle a good tightening twist. After that, I felt better. By now, however, the sun was up, and every time I looked in the rearview mirror. All I could see was the big letters D R O F. The backwards forward name was tilting gently from side to side. It was unnerving. “Why was that truck tailgating? Oh, yeah, that’s my other truck.” But other than the roaring of the engine, the spooky mirror image, and the heat, it was a nice trip. I did pull into an open way station, unsure it was necessary, but they waved me through. I drove into a truck stop for fuel, but couldn’t use the big rig pumps and had to settle for gassing up with the cars and the RVs. Later that afternoon, the Corbin exit came into view, and I pulled off the interstate and rolled into the truck stop. I found a parking spot way in the back, grabbed my bag, locked up the truck at the desk inside. I handed the keys to the clerk and told her about the pickup the next day. Then I asked, “Could you tell me how to get to the Greyhound bus station?” Since I had plenty of time, I planned to walk there. She looked at me and said, “Oh, the bus station is at the next exit off the interstate, and it was not in walking dist this. Don’t you worry, honey,” she said. “I’ll get you a ride,” and she picked up the mic and announced to one and all, “I got a trucker here.” She called me a trucker. I felt like I’d just been promoted. Up walked an amiable guy who said he was headed south, and we walked out to his tanker truck and boarded. We traded small talk about the relative merits of conventional cab versus cab-over-engine, and in no time flat we got off with the Corbin exit number two, and he drove me right up to the bus station, which was actually a gas station with a little window on the side of the building labeled Greyhound, which was closed. The guy at the gas station assured me that the window would be opened later and that the bus was due about 7 p.m. Across the road was a small diner. I ambled over and ordered the fried chicken. The bus came on time, hot, sweaty, and now queasy. I found the n aisle seat next to, what else—a very large woman. Neither of us had any desire to experience the other, which worked fine as long as we could maintain the appropriate tilt, but when sleep took over. Well, anyway, this bus was not on the express route. We visited towns with bus stations even smaller than the one we had just left, every last tiny town between Corbin, Kentucky, and Chicago, Illinois. I began to load. The sound of air brakes. It meant another stop. Around the crack of dawn, we pulled into Chicago, where I had to change buses to get home. During the wait, I tried to wash up and change in the restroom so I’d look and smell a little better. It was a wasted effort, and two hours later it pulled up in front of the Racine bus station. I called my wife and asked her to pick me help. She arrived shortly, and I got into the car. She never said a word. I don’t think she was impressed with our plan or with me. And you’ve been listening to Robert Frolick, and he’s a listener from Wisconsin. And if you have stories of your own, particularly road trip stories, we’re looking for some of those, too, especially bad road trip stories. They are particularly endearing after you’re finished with them and a year or two have passed. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Or any other stories you have—fun, sad, tragic, positive—anything you’ve got at all, send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Your stories or some of our favorites. Robert Frolick’s “Three, Two, One, You’re It!” his road trip story here on Our American Stories. And we continue here on Our American Stories. And we love to tell stories about every facet of American life. And periodically those are faith stories, because we know that faith animates so many Americans in their walk and in their day-to-day lives. Elizabeth Elliot has been described as one of the most influential Christian women of the 20th century. Let’s get right into the story. Here’s Greg Englin.
Elizabeth Elliot: “Through Gates of Splendor” is a 1957 best-selling book written by Elizabeth Elliot. Upon release, the book was so popular that it competed with John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” in terms of sales. “Through Gates of Splendor” tells the story of Operation Auca, an attempt by five American missionaries—Jim Elliot, the author’s husband; Pete Fleming; Ed McCulley Pilot; Nate Saint; and Roger Youderian, a participant at the Battle of the Bulge in World War II—to reach the Auca tribe of eastern Ecuador. All five men were killed by the tribe. In 1967, a documentary film also titled “Through Gates of Splendor” was narrated by Elizabeth Elliot herself. Thanks to the folks at Vision Video, we are about to hear this story. Here’s Elizabeth Elliot. The Republic of Ecuador, 3,000 air miles due south of New York City, is one of our friendly South American neighbor nations. Quito, its capital city, is just below the equator, 9,000 feet up in the Andes. This is where the story began. At one time or another, all of U.S. jungle missionaries stayed with Nate and Marge Saint in their rustic and thoroughly functional house. Marge managed to find time to take care of her three children and supply to jungle missionaries with everything from fresh beef and fruits to screens and nails. Whenever Nate took off with supplies, it was Marge who bought, stored, packed, wade, and even helped Nate load them into the plane. She kept his ground log, knew his position in the air, and stood by at all times with shortwave radio, whether I part got from Mctor pland over the friendly teach was with whom Jim, Pete, and Ed worked. All knew Nate’s little yellow plane and weren’t afraid of it. They even begged for rides. Even some of the well-known tribe of shrinkers called Hebrews had heard the words of the Lord Jesus from Roger and others, and some had come to believe. Nate was very ingenious. He invented a sort of pod on the wing struts which would release a parachute with supplies. When Jim and I were just married, we opened a new station at a place called Puyupungu. For five months, we had no airstrip, and Nate dropped some of our supplies to us by parachute. When the airstrip of Puyupungu finally passed Nate’s testing procedure and he made his first landing with us, we were as excited as the Indians. It gave us hopes of opening more stations, of getting around more often to visit the Indians. There was one group of Indians no one had ever visited and come out alive. They were the Aucas, feared even by neighboring Indian tribes. One day, when Nate had flown into Rahuna, where Ed Marylou lived, they decided to make another search. Everyone knew they were there somewhere in the jungle. Aucas had killed a Quechua Indian near Ed’s station only a few months before. The five fellows had talked and prayed a lot about reaching these people, but it seemed a very remote possibility until that day in September 1955, Ed and Nate were just about to turn around and fly for home when they saw the house. They didn’t see any people, but there was no question about it. It was an Auca house. Long before this, Nate had devised an air-to-ground exchange by means of a bucket suspended on a long cord.
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