Editorial

"We are devastated by this news."

Those words, uttered by the International Mission Board's Larry Cox, probably captured the immediate reaction of every Southern Baptist to the Dec. 30 murder of our three medical missionaries in Yemen. The worldwide campaign of Islamic terrorism has now claimed Southern Baptist martyrs.

Administrator William E. Koehn, physician Martha C. Myers and business manager Kathleen A. Gariety were killed and pharmacist Donald W. Caswell was injured in a premeditated act of murderous terrorism carried out by an Islamic radical who was seeking to "cleanse his religion and get closer to God," according to various news accounts. Yemeni authorities arrested the accused murderer, Abed Abdel Razzak Kamel. According to Reuters, "The gunman confessed to being a member of the Islamic Jihad group and said he shot the Americans because they were preaching Christianity.

The International Mission Board has operated the Jibla Baptist Hospital, located about 120 miles south of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, for 35 years. Situated on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. The hospital facility, which is owned by the Yemeni government, offers free medical care and medicine to 40,000 patients annually.

At a Dec. 30 news conference in Richmond, IMB President Jerry Rankin noted, "Our personnel, as Americans and Christians, are well aware of the risk of living and serving in a place like Yemen. Yet their love for the Yemeni people and obedience to the conviction of God's leadership has been expressed in a willingness to take that risk and give their lives."

He added, "Certainly we do take security precautions. Our personnel are trained to be sensitive to those issues. This will heighten their awareness of the need for security wherever they're serving. (But) we would not choose to end our ministry and service because of risk and danger to our personnel. If we did, we would probably be ending our ministry in many countries throughout the world."

A mere three weeks earlier, while in Orlando for a Dec. 7 meeting of mission agencies, Rankin offered the following strikingly prophetic comment in an exclusive interview with Witness managing editor Joni Hannigan: "The danger is certainly at hand and we fully recognize that it's not unlikely that we are going to have people that lose their lives. ... That's just part of the risk of being obedient to the Great Commission."

Rankin said the "reality of going into this kind of world where you meet those who are antagonistic to the Gospel" means there is "greater risk, a greater danger" in many missionary assignments, citing the Nov. 21 murder of Christian and Missionary Alliance medical missionary Bonnie Witherall and attacks on other Christian targets in the Islamic world.

Remarkably, at a time of heightened risk, Rankin told the Witness there is a "stirring" across Northern Africa and the Middle East since Sept. 11, 2001. He noted the IMB now has over 1,200 missionaries working with more than 300 Muslim people groups in 25 predominantly Muslim countries.

"People at the grass roots level are expressing disillusionment in their Islamic faith that has been used to justify terrorism," said Rankin. "They're asking questions [and] looking for hope into perpetuity, which of course only Jesus can provide."

And, Southern Baptists are responding to God's call to go to these difficult places of ministry, Rankin told us, citing as an example a student journeyman who recently returned from the Sudan where his assignment was to buy a camel with $500 and to join a 5-month caravan to Egypt in order to live an incarnational witness. "That's clearly evidence of passion that we're seeing in missionaries going out," he said.

In a Dec. 12 Witness exclusive, the six Southern Baptist seminary presidents also cited an "unprecedented flowering of missionary zeal on all our campuses." Southwestern Seminary president Kenneth Hemphill told us, "There's no question that this generation has a passion and a vision to reach the world. They really do want to go to the hard places. That's the heart desire of a lot of our students." For more on the interview see, "Southern Baptist seminary presidents express optimism for a 'Golden Age' of theological education."

While Southern Baptists are responding to the call, there is now - for the first time since World War II - the distinct possibility that the IMB may not be able to send all who have been called because of a lack of funds.

After sending a thousand new missionaries to the field for two consecutive years, Rankin told the Witness the IMB will have to cap the number of short-term personnel who have been scheduled to serve in 2003 if the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering does not meet or exceed this year's goal of $125 million.

"This is something we need to face," said Rankin. "If we don't meet our goal and get at least 10 percent more this year than we did last year, we will have to restrict the flow of appointments, which I think is absolutely tragic. Here are people qualified and called that will be restricted from going to the field," said Rankin.

Rankin said the IMB is reaching a "crisis," in spite of a steady increase in Cooperative Program giving.

"Southern Baptists are giving," Rankin explained. "But the growth doesn't begin to compare to the growth that we are experiencing in the missionary force."

He said there are well over 3,000 active candidates in the appointment process right now, and expects that number to keep climbing. In the past, the IMB typically appointed 150 new career missionaries annually, but has appointed close to 300 a year for the past two years.

For more on the Rankin interview, see "IMB FACES POSSIBLE MISSIONARY CAP" in the Dec. 19 issue. For more on the IMB's financial needs, see the Nov. 28 editorial, "That all peoples may know Him."

Southern Baptists should be grateful to God for our worldwide missionary enterprise encompassing nearly 5,500 missionaries serving in 184 countries reaching nearly 2,000 people groups. No single evangelical denomination can claim as many missionaries ministering across the globe. And yet, no Southern Baptist can rightly rest easy that we are doing our share in reaching the world for Christ.

Yes, our immediate reaction to the murder of our missionaries was devastation, but how will we react in the weeks and months and years that follow? Will we rise-up like never before to pray for and financially support those God is calling to mission field?

What a tragedy it would be - especially after the martyring of our own missionaries - if Southern Baptists are so complacent as to not provide the resources to send all those persons God is bringing to our International Mission Board. May our devastation turn to resolution that we will be faithful to support those God is calling.

How shall we pray? The colleagues of the missionary martyrs ask Southern Baptists to pray that more Christians will respond to God's call to serve on the mission field, that we would ask God to encourage the workers in Yemen who remain to know God's plan for His work there, and that Southern Baptists would pray many would come to faith in Jesus Christ through the testimonies of the martyrs.

Lee Hixon, who works at the hospital, told Baptist Press: "For the last 35 years there's been a lot of plowing of hard, almost punished earth. But, yes, there's a harvest here. God is working in people's hearts." One unnamed Yemeni national said following the funeral of the martyrs, "Something is happening in my heart."

---

For related coverage, see Missionary Martyrs Archive