Waco Tribune-Herald
September 20, 2001By JASON EMBRY/Tribune-Herald staff writer
from http://www.wacotrib.com/auto/feed/news/2001/09/19/1000955786.22424.9228.2493.html
Danny Mulkey will turn 50 Tuesday. He prays the hand of God will lift him out of Pakistan before then.
Mulkey is an assistant pastor at Waco's Antioch Community Church. He went to Pakistan two weeks ago to give prayer support to Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer, two church members jailed in neighboring Afghanistan and accused of preaching Christianity in the devoutly Muslim nation.
He planned to stay for a week, hoping that by then the two women would have been tried, released and sent back to the United States. But it hasn't worked out that way.
The Sept. 11 attacks on the East Coast stalled Curry and Mercer's ongoing trial, and the family members and diplomats supporting them in Afghanistan were soon told to leave the country. Mulkey, who had been staying in the Pakistani town of Peshawar near the Afghan border, moved with the family and diplomats to Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, which has about 525,000 residents. He said he hopes to stay until Curry and Mercer, both Baylor University graduates, are released.
That, he prays, will happen soon.
He stays at a guest house, which he likened to a small hotel. For about 22 American dollars a night, he sleeps in a room with two beds, a small color television, two orange chairs and some floral-patterned drapes. He spends a few hours a day taking care of Antioch business from a nearby Internet cafe. He makes regular walks to a small nearby store that sells food, usually wearing a sports shirt with jeans or khaki pants.
And he prays. He reads his Bible and prays for about an hour after he wakes up. After breakfast and a shower, he prays some more. With enough prayer, he believes, Curry and Mercer will be freed.
"I'm praying for the detainees to be released, and I just don't see that happening apart from the intervention of God," Mulkey said. He's also praying for their families and fellow detainees — four Germans and two Australians who, like Curry and Mercer, went to Afghanistan to help the poor through a German-based aid agency.
Mulkey also lifts up his own family. Kathy Mulkey, his wife of 25 years, works in the Baylor registrar's office. Their son and daughter go to school there.
Mulkey grew up in Arkansas and went to Baylor himself. He became a pastor in his mid-30s, and spends much of his Antioch time working with families.
Kathy Mulkey calls her husband each night, catching him in the morning because Islamabad time is 10 hours ahead of Texas. Even in a time of global tension, she said she does not worry about his safety.
"I've got this little saying that you can't worry and trust God at the same time," she said. "I just feel like God has said this is the place for him to be, and I'm going to trust God to take care of him."
Danny Mulkey met Curry and Mercer at Highland Baptist Church, which Antioch grew out of more than two years ago. Knowing that he could not get an Afghan visa for their trial, he decided to support them from nearby Peshawar in Pakistan.
"I think all of us on our staff at home thought if it was us or one of our kids — and someday it could be — we would want somebody there as close to them as they could get," he said. "I don't know if the girls know that I'm here or not, but if they do, I think it could be very encouraging to them. Not because it's me, but because it's somebody from their church."
Antioch Senior Pastor Jimmy Seibert called and informed Mulkey of the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States as they were happening. Mulkey soon took a 45-minute plane ride to Islamabad to be near the parents and American diplomats.
"It was very hard on (the parents) to have to leave Afghanistan without Heather and Dayna," he said. "I can imagine. I have two kids and I know what I would feel like having to do that."
Along with his rigorous prayer time, Mulkey said he spends much of the day with an eye on television news and keeping up with Antioch's study of the Book of John. He said the streets of Islamabad are lined with trees, and there's a beautiful administrative district with spread-out embassies and government buildings.
Some parts of town, he said, are less enchanting. Earlier this week he avoided some anti-American demonstrators about a mile from his living quarters.
"I realize that here there is the potential for danger, but I don't really feel like I'm in any imminent danger," said Mulkey, who doesn't speak the common language of Urdu. "But I'm careful. I don't walk around in fear, but I'm careful about where I go and when I go out and that sort of thing."
He said the Waco women's parents spend much of their time at the American embassy in Pakistan. He sees little of Mercer's parents because they're staying across town.
Nancy Cassell, Curry's mother and a teacher from Tennessee, stays with a family she met in Islamabad. Because their home is about a block from Mulkey's guest house, he sees her regularly.
"I wouldn't say she's fearful," Mulkey said. "She's obviously very concerned, but she is really a great woman of faith and has been very much behind Dayna all the way, and so she's keeping her focus right. I'm sure she has down times, but fearful is not a word I would use on her at all."
Seibert, the Antioch pastor, held a Tuesday news conference to ask the public to pray for Curry and Mercer's release. Not wanting to put them in further danger, the church had previously offered little public comment about the women.
Like Seibert a day before him, Mulkey answered almost all questions frankly in an interview that lasted more than an hour. With all that has happened in the world over the last nine days, he said the church wants Waco residents to remember their neighbors jailed in Afghanistan.
"We want to initiate as much prayer support as possible," he said. "We believe that it's going to be the power of God in response to people praying that actually will get these girls released."
And, perhaps, get Mulkey home for his 50th birthday.
Jason Embry can be reached at jembry@wacotrib.com or at 757-5743.
© 2001 Cox Newspapers, Inc.
For fair use.
