“Their intention was to kill” – missionary moments

Working among a Muslim tribal community, we found ourselves in the middle of dangerous tribal clashes.  In that part of the world, people groups stay away from each other in their different villages, so mixing them for activities like community health outreaches can cause fights.  This means we have to have different engagements for each village.  We were caught in the crossfire of tribal conflicts during one outreach, where one group picked a fight, claiming that one of the health service providers was from another people group which they despised.  Their intention was to kill that person when they arrived to do the health service engagement, but luckily the Red Cross people got wind of it and the car they were traveling in did not stop to let that person out near the people who intended to kill her!  Such deeply ingrained hatred caused us stress and interfered with our ability to provide health care to those far-off people, but we persevered with the love of Christ regardless.  Despite the difficulties, we were encouraged when a seemingly uninterested group of youth suddenly expressed curiosity about the Christian faith and always had lots of questions and liked being told more Bible stories. Thus, we were encouraged to continue our health work along with witnessing to Christ. – Ugandan healthcare worker serving among tribal Muslim communities in East Africa

Representative photo