I suppose "terrified do-gooders" may have originally referred to, and likely better applies to
Larry & Jean Elliott, Karen Watson, and David McDonnell, so some comparison and contrast is in order, because these deaths seem to be often compared.
I didn't know these personally, but was among their associates in Lebanon and Yemen. You won't find any veteran mideast Southern Baptist missionaries promoting the world view that is prominently espoused by American TV evangelists and Washington neoconservatives.
While nearly always maintaining a firm grip on their faith, these folks seem to invariably "go native" in understanding local concerns and perspectives where they serve. On returning home to the Southern Baptist Convention and hometown churches, there is often a much more ponderous gap in understanding that experienced missionaries confront. The culture shock upon returning home, especially concerning political issues, can be more severe than the initial culture shock of going abroad.
Experienced "do-gooder" missionaries in dangerous places generally abhor the idea of their own, or associates' perversion into poster-martyrs for the likes of Paul Wolfowitz. During some very bad times in South America, when friends of Washington were killing missionaries, it was similarly counterproductive to mission work for deaths to become politicized. For associates of slain missionaries, it's like the victims are not butchered only once in the physical sense, but also again in their earthly afterlife, or legacy, which is ground up by political operatives to fortify with martyrdom their particular and distinct recipes for public consumption
Many ghosts of the past at times haunt the work of modern missionaries who genuinely live by example of service and sacrifice for others, and employ no other means of persuasion, or any coercion in following their beliefs.
Bill Koehn, Kathy Gariety, and Martha Myers were killed at the
Jibla Baptist Hospital where for a generation Yemenis have been offered unheard-of emergency and routine health care, without religious coercion. I lived there as a lad, when my father worked at the hospital. Activities were entirely for the support of the medical mission, and any "evangelism" was only conveyed by the living of lives and sharing of talents in service of others, with nothing asked in return. Jibla was sort of like a MASH unit in its remoteness, but grew to provide amazing levels of care, where highly skilled medical teams achieved many amazing good works, not for monetary but spiritual reward.
Now that the consequences of a shift in US foreign policy have poyzund* the future of this facility, there will be no converted Christian Yemeni community left behind, because one was never created- These missionaries devoted themselves to service and example- not conversion- even while sharing their faith freely when asked. These missionaries will not be remembered as people who came to impose a religion and culture on the natives. They can only be remembered by the Yemenis they served as amazing Christians from America (I should add that many committed workers also were also hired from other countries) who saves thousands of lives and improved the quality of many more, with no demands for payment or a single religious discussion.
I just wanted to briefly draw the distinction between bona fide "do-gooders" who are out there now, who actually do get caught up in the gory wheels of conflict, along with soldiers of fortune, who make so much more money, but who in both works and death leave behind so much less that the world can gain from.
In the rising climate of conflict and fear in the Mideast, a disconnect, a little-noticed exodus is underway, because it is becoming less possible for Westerners and especially Americans to involve themselves in productive activity within the spreading hotspots of the "War on Terror". Under present policy, many more people are going to meet America in violent and impoverishing experiences. It's out with the do-gooders, and in with the dogs of war. Welcome to the New American Century.
* note
I apologize for the phonetic spelling, "********" (poy-zund) is a forbidden word for some reason. If you also find this curious, we could explore this weirdness over
here
