The last time Reca Davis saw Larry and Jean Elliott, the couple was in the States, preparing for their service in Iraq. For some 25 years the Elliotts served in Honduras with the International Mission Board (IMB), but they felt called to go elsewhere.
“[T]hey truly knew that it was God’s calling for them to go [to Iraq],” Davis, a friend of the Elliotts, said. “We certainly support that, because we know they were people who would just do exactly what they felt was God’s will.”
The Elliotts were killed March 15, along with two Baptist co-workers, in a drive-by shooting in northern Iraq. Larry Elliott was 60; Jean Elliott, 58. Both were members of First Baptist Church in Cary, N.C., before their service in Honduras. When the Elliotts were home, they would stay in the church’s mission house.
Davis and her husband, Lynn, also First Baptist members, had known the Elliotts for years but their friendship grew during a short-term missions trip to Honduras last November.
“We were in Honduras when they were praying about going to Iraq, and they asked for us to be in prayer with them about that,” Reca Davis said. “And we did — we prayed a lot with them on that.”
Davis last heard from them in a letter she received in February. “Jean wrote it on the 18th of February as they were going over to Baghdad,” Davis said. “[It was] a really fun note reflecting back on a lot of the fun times we had over our time in Honduras. … That is something certainly that I treasure.”
Larry Elliott received a master of divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1978.
“Southeastern Seminary mourns the loss of two members of our seminary family, as well as a precious friend from Bakersfield, Calif.,” said Southeastern President Daniel Akin, referencing another of the slain missionaries, Karen Watson, who worked with Southeastern graduate Andy Prince and his wife, Kristine, to start a new church in Bakersfield.
Stephen Rummage, director of Southeastern’s doctor of ministry program, is the interim pastor of First Baptist Church in Cary, where the Elliotts attended when they were on visits back in the United States. Rummage said the family last visited the area around New Year’s Day before their transfer to the IMB’s Middle East region in February.
“We’re praying for the Lord’s comfort for them [the Elliott family], but we also know the Elliotts were serving the Lord and doing their best with the difficult situation in Iraq,” Rummage said. “We are just grieved.”
The Elliotts are survived by three adult children, Gina Elliott Kim of Houston; Todd Elliott in Arlington, Va.; and Scott Elliott in Raleigh, N.C. (BP)
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