I confess I was finishing up my Christmas list in a perfect fashion for a busy mom in a little mountain town: online only on Black Friday, while my kids shouted around the house. But when I went to check my email account, it was a headline that caused my heart to fall: A 26-year-old missionary from Vancouver, Washington, John Allen Chau, killed by bow and arrow on India’s Andaman islands in the Bay of Bengal.
“I hollered, ‘My name is John, I love you and Jesus loves you’…You guys might think I’m crazy and all this, but I think it is worth it to declare Jesus to these people,” Chau wrote in his journal of his previous attempts, the UK Mirror and ABC News report. In one of his first attempts, one of the native children shot at Mr. Chau’s heart. The arrow skewered his waterproof Bible there instead.
A friend of mine lives with her husband, helping migrants in Asia. She amazes me, you know. There are 40-50 malnourished kids who gather in their compound for a healthy meal and vitamins before school (my friend’s home is half home, half community center). They run businesses out of their home, training and empowering community members. They shuttle people to the hospital at all hours. They run a summer program, where kids are tutored by their teenage neighbors so they can excel in school.