With Missionaries Spreading, Muslims' Anger Is Following (NYT sees missionaries deserving of death)

New York Times ^ | Dec. 31, 2002 | SUSAN SACHS

[twntaipan]

Well, the Slimes now equates sharing Christ with the violence perpetrated on three dead missionaries. This is a Slimes hit piece.

[twntaipan]

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."

---

[I_Love_My_Husband]

The Slimes thinks that building hospitals, giving out food, toys and (shock horror!) Christian literature is deserving of death by fanatic Muslims.

Sick.

Well God bless those people. I hope many Muslims DO convert to Christianity (as Ann said). It would be better for the world.

[twntaipan]

Lowlifes on the SF Indymedia called these three dead Christians "Zionist Oppressors" and said it was justified. I do not understand how anyone can equate sharing a message of hope with violence.

[Texas_Jarhead]

I attended Christmas-eve worship services with my parents at their Baptist church (not my regular) and the church's mission statement is to "provide living proof of a loving God to a watching world". From what my parents tell me, they really live up to that mission. You show me a mosque with similar motivation and I'll show you a building full of closet Christians.

[WOSG]

The evil is the blasphemy laws that this weak religion hides behind.... why can the NYT see the evil of this violation of freedom of conscience? because they have not a conscience anymore??? hmmm???

[k2blader]

Bump.

[DoughtyOne]

I believe it is important to note several things in conjunction with this article.

The world representative of the organization who's people were killed made a few statements yesterday.  I'll paraphrase several of them here.

These "missionaries" worked in close conjunction with the local government.  The local government respected them and appreciated their service.  The local government provided security for the hospital.  While the security was defeated and the murders perpetrated, the perpetrators were caught on sight and arrested.  They will be prosecuted.  Local community members who have recieved free quality medical care for upwards of thirty years by these devoted people, are devistated by the loss and are mourning the tragedy and their loss.

Lastly, these medical services are provided for free.  The providers who lost their lives were not there to become rich.  They were there to provide quality medical care to their fellow human beings, regardless of the differences of race, cultures or abilities to pay.

The organization recognizes the local culture's abhorance of missionary prosteletization, and instructs it's workers to refrain from seeking conversion of those they serve.  They are there to provide quality service and minister through good works.

I must say, any individual or public entity that would seek to make mileage off this incident to the detriment of the organization that provided these Christian people, will answer to a higher authority one day.  It is hard to believe, but ther are people and organizations out there who believe that any good deed should not go unpunished.  May they reap the harvest of their treachery.

[xm177e2]

Christian missionaries have been active across much of the Muslim Middle East for hundreds of years, at least as far back as the Crusades.

Christian missionaries were active in the Middle East before Islam even existed!

I wonder if the Times would be so understanding if it were Muslim missionaries being gunned down here in Amrika? Or would they be bemoaning the racist backlash against innocent peaceful Muslims?

Why can't they condemn religious bigotry in all its forms? Because THEY HATE CHRISTIANS. If no Christians subscribed to the NYT, it would go out of business. Unfortunately, there are enough self-hating Christians to keep it afloat.

[ReveBM]

I view most of the Times's Christian subscribers as being "Christians" in name only, as much as Madonna is a Christian for hanging a big gold cross around her neck.

Fortunately, boycott or no boycott, the Times has been having increasing problems with the public (witness their editors' news conference a few months ago "explaining" their positions on Iraq). They have not yet entered the downward spiral that has already captured MSNBC, CNN and the like, but their day may come soon...

[2sheep]

>The Slimes thinks that building hospitals, giving out food, toys and (shock horror!) Christian literature is deserving of death by fanatic Muslims.

Jews give hospital and other care to Muslims in Israel and don't evangelize at all and they are a target of murdering Muslims just *for existing.* It is not what you do that gets you hated, it is the people of the devil (Muslims) that hate the people of G-d (Jews/Christians).

[twntaipan]

Let it be very soon...and may FoxNews then buy them out! Better yet, let Pat Robertson come in an buy their remaining assets.

[twntaipan]

Note that Arab journalists, including Yemenis, have consistently said the man is a Muslim terrorist connected with a known terror cell--yet our media, and, unfortunately the US State Dept and the WH, continue to say there are no links to terrorism.

[MarMema]

The Orthodox and Coptic churches, which have lived among Muslims for centuries, know how to cultivate their own flocks without threatening the political territory of Muslim rulers and clerics.

Worth highlighting. And we don't proselytize either.

[twntaipan]

12/30/02 - Tyler Texas KLTV

Murdered Missionaries "Like Family" to Tyler Couple

The call to Jay Roberts came early this morning.

"[It was] shock, you don't really feel anything. You're kind of numb."

The Jibla hospital and the people there have a special place in Jay Roberts heart. He met his wife Juna there. They were married back in the states.

Today, he says danger is something that comes with the territory, and something that's a reality in Yemen.

"You're always aware of it. It's not a topic of conversation, because you live with it all the time, you know it's there."

There are nothing but fond memories of the three people who died doing what they loved-- indeed, what they commited their lives to.

Kathleen Gariety of Wisconsin. -- Jay says: "Kathy was a passionate person. She had a lot of emotion. She loved the work she did."

Dr. Martha Myers, whom Jay says was a legend in Yemen. "She would drive three hours up a mountain to check on someone she'd seen two weeks earlier." "[It was] the first question you'd get: 'Do you know Martha? I know Martha.'"

And hospital director Bill Koehn... "[He was] treating everyone with respect and dignity regardless what their circumstances were." Bill was treated like a father to the Roberts. He gave away the bride when Jay and Juna were married.

Jay says God has a hand in every event. Even those one no one understands.

"I have to trust that God has a purpose for this and that good will come from it."

[twntaipan]

Sort of cut Matthew 28:18-20 out of your Bible, huh?

[guitfiddlist]

I wonder how the Slimes would cover it if a jihadist murdered doctors in an American Planned Parenthood center in Yemen.

[goldstategop]

Why does the Religion Of Peace fear conversions? If Islam is so superior it should be able to hold its own in the marketplace of ideas.