Original Message 1/2                 Date: 26-Nov-02  @  02:35 PM   -   about the missionary who was killed

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"Similarly, consider the headline on a report from Monday's New York Times reflecting on the murder in Lebanon of a Christian medical missionary, an Evangelical Protestant who was murdered last week in her clinic by an unidentified assassin. The Times headline read: "Killing Underscores Enmity of Evangelists and Muslims." But the enmity unmistakably goes only one way. The dead Bonnie Witherall's husband and colleagues proclaimed their love for the people of southern Lebanon, even after the murder. "Whoever did this crime, I forgive them," Garry Witherall said at her memorial service. "It's not easy. It took everything I have, but I can forgive these people because God has forgiven me."

The missionaries, on the other hand, had been denounced by local Islamic leaders, in part because, as one Muslim magazine quoted by the Times put it, "They destroy the fighting spirit of the children, especially of the Palestinian youth, by teaching them not to fight the Jews, for the Palestinians to forgive the Jews and leave them Jerusalem."

taken from: http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher112602.asp

another strange twist...

so even if you strive for peace you get killed. i can't imagine living among people working in a free medical clinic, dedicating your life to some of the more impoverished people of the world to be killed like that. and then for her husband to forgive the murderers and keep working for the people's benefit there.

its all so tangled and not as simple as it gets portrayed by american conservative media (very pro isreal for democratic reasons)

until recently i was all pro isreal until i started reading about how the arab christians and muslims are treated etc. now i am more in the neutral zone.

now i see that everyone is equally guilty. if both sides had huge militaries it would be a blood bath.

just a different angle on a horrible situation.

jamey

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Message 2/2                 Date: 26-Nov-02  @  06:01 PM   -   RE: about the missionary who was killed

errata

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Agreed in full... I understand the motivations for the Arab violence and in some ways I even sympathize but their actions cloud the justice of their plight! There's no condition under which people can act in this way.

It's a deep sickness that community leaders would prefer to see their children ill and unfed if it keeps them angry enough to fight. I've said elsewhere that I feel this sickness is a direct result of the BAD behavior of western influence on the region (Taking the position that Israel's modern existence is a direct result of western influence). But that doesn't make it's symptoms tolerable to the rest of us.

It's a beautiful and powerful thing to see forgiveness in action. Understanding the conditions of ignorance and not lashing out at the people who've done this, this widower is a truely decent person. I just hope he truely feels the way he's talking. Blindly excepting the need to forgive could just make him angrier and his situation worse.

e

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