Posted on 04/29/2003 6:25:40 PM PDT by miltonim
Willing to Die in Muslim Lands, for Jesus
In the past, medical missionaries usually have been left alone to do their work. Their benefit to the community they served was too great to go without it.
DALLAS, Texas — When missionaries hear God's call, many of them know the price they pay may be great. For those who minister in Muslim nations, that price may be their very lives. Some missionaries have been violently killed, because they are Christians, or because they are Americans. And that has been a growing trend in the months since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The problem has many American seminaries rethinking the way they reach the lost overseas.
Before she was killed, missionary Kathleen Gariety said on an audiotape, "I am reminded of the calling and how strong my calling was to come to Yemen. There's a reason for being here. I might not know what one little thing it is that I am here to do. But I am here and I will continue to stay until God tells me to go home."
Gariety and two of her Christian coworkers did go home in a way, because they never quite considered this world their home. On December 30, 2002, a man cradling a gun in a baby blanket slipped past security at the Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen.
Eyewitness Abdel Salam said through an interpreter, "I heard some shooting. I saw the guy running outside. I was afraid. I heard them saying, 'He killed the doctors! He killed the doctors!'"
The killing spree took the lives of Kathleen Gariety, Martha Myers and William Koehn. The shooter never met his victims, never felt their healing touch, and never saw the lives saved by their work.
To the gunman, the doctors' crime was simply being an American, and a Christian. But these doctors are only a few of the victims of a killing rampage by Muslim extremists in the months since 9/11.
In the past, medical missionaries usually have been left alone to do their work. Their benefit to the community they served was too great to go without it.
Mike Edens, a representative for the Southern Baptists’ International Missions Board [IMB], said, "Medical missions has, in modern mission history, has been a way for Christian compassion and the spirit of Christ to be expressed in the midst of human need."
But the relative safety of medical missions is no longer guaranteed. Nurse Bonnie Witherall, 31, had come to work early at the Christian pre-natal clinic in Lebanon one day in late November. She heard knock at her door, and when she answered, a man shot her three times in the head.
Sheikh Maher Hamoud is a leading Muslim cleric in Lebanon. In the weeks after Bonnie's murder, he was quoted in local media as saying she had deserved death. But in an exclusive CBN News interview, the sheikh seems to have toned down his rhetoric for the camera.
"Those missionaries, their work is dangerous and we can't define their true goals," he said. "To say her mission was humanitarian, if the community doesn't accept her, well, it isn't up to her to call her mission humanitarian. The society is refusing her."
The sheik's words echoed the sentiments of Colonel Munir el Makdah. He is named as a terrorist on an Israeli government watch list. He told CBN News that Witherall's American citizenship is to blame for her murder. "Many Americans get killed in the world. I believe, Americans should review their accounts in foreign policy," he said.
The recent attacks on Christians may bring the future of missions into question. CBN News spoke with several Bible colleges to see what they are doing to train their students so the next generation can pick up where others have left off.
Different seminaries around the U.S. are starting to rethink their approach to missions. Now that Americans are targets, many leaders believe future missions work will be done more by Christians who are natives to their country.
But one thing has not changed, and that is students' resolve to go no matter the cost. Not one seminary student we talked to said he or she would stay home because of the recent attacks.
Blake, a Baylor seminary student, said, "It really doesn't dissuade my decision to be a missionary."
Twenty-six-year-old Christy, also from Baylor, says a physical death is not as bad as a death of the soul. "It seems to me that to not go overseas would result in a different kind of death for me because I feel like that's who I am made to be. I feel like that's who God has called me to be, and that's my passion and my love. And so for me to deny that in hopes of having a safer life would result in a death of who I am," she said.
Yanira, a student at Christ for the Nations Institute, said, "My greatest fear is not going. My greatest fear would be to let people to die without knowing Christ… I do not want to stand before God one day and say 'Lord I didn't go.' 'Why not?' 'Because I was afraid.'"
Adriana is a young dentist training at Christ for the Nations to work in a Muslim country one day. She grew thoughtful when asked what she would say to the families of the missionaries killed recently. "I think of my mom, and if I'll die. I would like her to be so happy that, be happy, be happy that the one you love is in heaven and he is safe there and he did what was his best," she said.
Doing one's best is something the missionaries in Yemen were known for. But a new season has started for the hospital in Jibla. Media reports are saying the hospital has been handed back to the Yemeni government. So CBN News asked Edens of IMB if he thinks this means the mission has been a failure.
He responded, "No, not by any means. First of all, it's not a failure anytime God's people are obedient… There are people today in Yemen, in Jibla, continuing to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ and love Yemenis in the name of Christ and that is never a failure."
Before Martha Myers was killed with the other two missionaries in Jibla, she said on an audiotape, "I would say that no prayers are wasted in Yemen or any of the other countries because the needs are so great. And I would say the fields are white unto harvest."
Guess what, Jackson? We did just that, and you ain't gonna like our new policy. Just ask Iraq. It sucks to be a smoking hole in the ground....
I'll answer your question with a question. Would the world be a different place today if Mohammed Atta's parents had been sterilized?
Never discourage someone who wants to preach the gospel in a hostile land....
I think that young people should be a little older and more mature before they make this choice. If my own son decided to go now I would sure try to stop him. And you would have no business telling me to sacrifice my son while you sit here safe and sound.
I know what you mean and it's hard to understand that kind of mentality.
When someone says, and I quote, "I for one think these missionary kids need to stay away from the mu"slum" countries.... Leave them to their religion.... Let them rot," I take notice.
You're right to counsel prudence to your son. But some jerk behind a keyboard shouldn't say that entire nations should be left to rot.
I stand by my statement.
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