Replies

Would someone see that Patty Murray and Harold Raines sees the following?

Missionary `died carrying out her mission,' friends say
BY TOM HELD AND ANNYSA JOHNSON
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE - (KRT) - David Moorman winces when he sees the word "martyr" stretched and diluted, used to describe people whose faith falls short of the title's required commitment and depth.

Yet he found the word wholly appropriate to describe his friend, Milwaukee native Kathleen Gariety, one of three Baptist missionaries gunned down Monday in the hospital in Yemen where they worked.

"I see a martyr as someone willing to put their life on the line for something they believe in strongly," said Moorman, who met Gariety as a member of the Layton Avenue Baptist Church in Milwaukee. "In her case, Kathy was quite worthy, and I have no problem in calling her a martyr.

"She died carrying out her mission."

Surrounded by poverty and danger, Gariety remained committed to her faith and the people she found in need, even as world events raised fear among friends and relatives back home in the Milwaukee area.

During Gariety's last visit to her Wauwatosa home this summer, her family pleaded with her not to return to Jibla because of the instability in the region.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the U.S. government repeatedly warned Americans to be cautious in Yemen, the native country of Osama bin Laden and a refuge for Muslim militants.

"I'd get on the government Web sites and show her the travel warnings," said her brother, Jerome Gariety Jr. of Colgate. "But she'd say things aren't as bad as they're perceived to be."

Other friends and relatives said Gariety's certainty of her calling overwhelmed any uncertainty in the world around her.

"From the crown of her head to the souls of her feet, she was devoted to this ministry, and felt that God had called her to be involved in this hospital," said Keith Cogburn, the executive director of the Lakeland Baptist Association.

At the 80-bed hospital in Jibla, Gariety served as the purchasing manager, a title that understated her complex work in keeping the facility supplied with linens, medicine and equipment.

On her visits to Milwaukee, she spoke to church members about her missionary work and coordinated the shipment of thousands of dollars worth of supplies back to the hospital.

"She'd physically fill it," Jerome Gariety said of the 40-foot shipping container parked at the Port of Milwaukee. "We'd go down there and help her. Then they'd put it on a ship and it would be delivered over there."

The second of four children, Gariety grew up a Catholic in Wauwatosa, and attended Mother of Good Counsel elementary and Pius XI High schools. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1971 with a (degree) in art, then managed college bookstores in Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan.

She showed a commitment to religion and helping others early in her life, prompting her family to envision her as a nun.

"She was a very caring person," Jerome Gariety said, fighting to hold back the tears that slid down his face. "If anyone would come to someone's aid, it was Kathy."

After converting to the Baptist faith in Michigan, Gariety returned to the Milwaukee area and joined the Layton Avenue Baptist Church, part of the Southern Baptist Convention. There, she volunteered as a youth leader and became friends with Moorman; the church's pastor, Keith Chase; and Chase's wife, Joanne.

During an evening service at the church, Gariety walked to the front of the congregation and declared that she had felt God's call. She applied to the Southern Baptist International Mission Board and was assigned to the hospital in Yemen.

"That's not the first place you would choose to go, but it became the place she would choose to be," said Joanne Chase, who still calls Gariety her best friend. "She is a person who is able to look beyond stereotypes and politics and see into people's hearts, and she was very concerned about the people."

In Jibla, a city about 120 miles south of the Yemen capital, Gariety lived in a small apartment among her neighbors, eschewing the housing on the hospital compound. She shared evenings with her neighbors on the cool roof of her apartment building, and became more friend than foreigner.

In addition to her work in the hospital, Gariety visited Yemeni orphanages and worked with local leaders on women's health issues.

"She was determined," Joanne Chase said. "She was an ever-hopeful person, so whenever she was confronted with any sort of challenge, she would approach it positively."

Gariety proselytized, but discreetly, careful not to violate Muslim law limiting such practices, Keith Chase and her brother said. She recognized the danger around her, but separated the terrorists from the people she knew to be good friends and neighbors.

"She was very much aware of the danger, but she wasn't fearful," Joanne Chase said. "Her faith is her rock, and her strength and direction and her purpose."

In keeping with his faith, Keith Chase implored people to pray for Gariety's killer.

"We are called to love our enemies," he said. "They would want us to pray and to recognize that the vast majority of the Yemeni people condemn the acts of the killer as much as we do.

"It would tarnish the life and ministry of these people to allow hatred to win."

Jerome Gariety and Keith Chase joined Moorman in calling the slain missionary a martyr. They were also certain that Gariety and those who died with her - hospital director William E. Koehn and physician Martha C. Myers - would never claim that title for themselves.

"Kathy, Dr. Martha, Bill - they would much prefer to be seen as people who loved the Yemeni people enough to lay down their lives for them," Chase said.

Though no funeral arrangements have been made, Jerome Gariety and his two surviving sisters said they would bury her at Holy Cross Cemetery. The U.S. State Department had asked if the family would be willing to bury her in Yemen - it will be costly to bring her body back - but Jerome said no.

"She may have felt comfortable there. But she's my sister," he said. "She needs to come home."

---