Keep on Keeping on

The majority of the post is simple copy and paste which may be plagiarism but it’s an inspiring story of determination and surrender to following Christ. Many people follow God as long as it’s comfortable and convenient but true worshippers follow in good and bad as they stay the course no matter what.

Missionaries return to Tanzania after surviving brutal attack there
By Charlie Warren
Published May 8, 2007

MOSHI, Tanzania (ABP) -- Two Southern Baptist missionaries are on their way back to Tanzania, where they were attacked with machetes and shot during a vicious robbery in the E ast African country.

Carl and Kay Garvin, Southern Baptist missionaries who returned to Arkansas after the Feb. 23 attack in a remote village south of Moshi , Tanzania , have recovered remarkably well from the assault. They arrived in Nairobi , Kenya , April 24 for missionary meetings and a prayer retreat before a May 6 return to Tanzania .

The alleged robbers and would-be murderers have been apprehended by Tanzanian authorities, but the Garvins are still reeling from the harrowing evening when they were attacked in a rural inn.

They had just finished working in neighboring churches and were settling down after dinner when two men burst into the building, shouting for everyone to get on the floor. Baptist volunteers traveling with the Garvins ran to their rooms, but when the Garvins retreated to their room, the men tried to break the door.

Carl Garvin braced his back against a bed in the small room with his feet on the door to hold it closed. The door finally broke, collapsing onto Carl Garvin’s head and cutting him deeply. He was partially blinded by blood pouring into his eye. One of the men swung a machete at Garvin, who blocked the blow with his left arm.

“I felt the force of the blow, but I did not feel any pain,” he said. “The man was wild-eyed. He looked demon-possessed to me. He was very much out of control. He never stopped. He just kept constantly swinging. I counted six or seven hits on my body.”

At the same time, another “very calm” man stood in the hallway with a pistol. When the men demanded money, the Garvins gave them a purse and a wallet. But as the first intruder laid down the machete, Kay Garvin picked it up and took a swing at him.

That’s when she was shot by the man in the hall, whom she had not noticed.

“I told Carl, ‘He shot me!’” she said, “I was in disbelief that the man did that. I truly thought I was going to die.”

The bullet entered above her left breast, went through her lung and lodged in her back. It missed her aorta by an inch.

Carl Garvin feared the worst. “I thought I was going to get shot,” he said. “We had seen their faces. I was not afraid, but I was resigned to the fact that the next bullet would be mine.”

But the men took the money and a few possessions and left. Carl Garvin, a military nurse for 34 years and a Vietnam veteran, began treating his wife.

“I had seen gunshot wounds, and I knew that the chest was not a good place to get shot,” he said. “I thought I would lose her. I found it very difficult to say much more than a sentence prayer.”

Just then, volunteers Joe and Cindy Lennon, members of First Baptist Church of Harrison, Ark., and Rudy Dehrens, a member of Grandview First Baptist Church of Berryville, Ark., emerged from their rooms.

Dehrens, a nurse, began treating Kay Garvin. Carl Garvin, who had severely damaged bones in his arm and knee, organized locals to move his wife to a car to drive to the nearest medical facility, in Moshi -- a two-hour drive over rough roads.

“All I could do was pray short prayers,” Kay Garvin said. “‘Lord, I love you.’ ‘Lord, thank you for your protection.’”

She said she asked God not to let her die.

“I knew if I went to sleep I would never wake up,” she said. “I looked out the window. The sky was bright. The stars were beautiful, and I said, ‘Lord, I know you are all around, and I know you’re going to protect me.’ But I still had that fear. For two hours, I did not know if I would make it.”

As she looked at the stars, she said, she started to sing “God is so good,” and the others joined in.
Once on the road, Carl Garvin notified the International Mission Board, their employer, by calling the cell phone of the strategy associate in Nairobi , who happened to be in a meeting with IMB vice presidents. IMB personnel then called the Garvins’ children and started a prayer chain.

When the Garvins and the volunteers arrived at the Moshi medical facility, they immediately met with three missionary doctors and a Muslim doctor the Garvins had befriended.

Meanwhile, the IMB arranged for a medical evacuation plane, equipped with a doctor and a nurse, to fly to the nearby Kilimanjaro airport. Lanterns were placed on the airstrip so it could take off.

The Garvins had to get special permission to leave the country. Finally, 12 hours after the attack, they arrived at a hospital in Nairobi to receive the quality medical treatment they needed.

Today, Carl Garvin has a steel plate in his arm and can’t drive or lift anything for three months. He may face surgery on his knee in a few years.

Through it all, critics have asked the Garvins how God could let such an attack happen to people apparently serving him. But Carl Garvin calls that “shallow thinking.”

“God was in the room with us,” he said. “God allowed our bodies to be touched, but our lives were preserved. God’s purpose was they could only go so far.”

Plus, he added, God enabled everyone to remain calm throughout the ordeal. God provided a driver to the hospital, protection on the difficult journey to Moshi and comfort to the injured during the trip, he said. Moshi even had electricity that night -- an uncommon occurrence at times, he added.

“This is not our story. It is God’s story,” he said. “It is a story of his mercy, his grace, his power, his timing, [and] his miracles. It was miracle after miracle.”

Kay Garvin plans to attest to that power. After her surgery, she held the .38-caliber bullet once embedded in her back. She’d like to keep it for good.

“It was given to me personally, and I want it back,” she joked, adding that she plans to mount it on a necklace and use it as a conversation piece about God.

Indeed, the Garvins firmly believe their return to Africa is necessary as a way to reach more people in Tanzania and encourage other missionaries there. Kay Garvin, for all she’s been through, said she’s excited to go “home.”

“There will be many things we will have to face as we return, but God has seen us through so much already [that] I am sure he will see us through these things also,” she said. “We look forward to see his plan for our life and how he will use us to share the gospel. We want to share what he has done for us, and we want the African people to see what a wonderful God we serve.”