In the beginning of August, 2010, 10 people were martyred. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10903226
(She names them). And my husband, Tom.
(She names bit by bit the vocations of the 10.)
They were returning from a 3 week mobile clinic in Nuristan.
They left Kabul asking us to pray that they would share God’s mercy. That they would have a ready answer for any who should ask. That they would have stamina for the trek.
Every day he would call twice a day for 1 minute with notes on their progress. I’m going to share them with you now.
Long hiking day.
Slept under the stars tonight, because we didn’t make it to the shepherd’s hut in time.
Pass over the mountain treacherous, with freezing rain.
Never ending stream of people waiting in the rain for our clinic.
Warm welcome from the leader, with goat cheese.
Never saw or smelled so many rotten teeth.
Horrified again
Cheryl & I took turns staying through the night with a teen dying of
Made it to the shepherd’s hut beat, exhausted
Tending oozing feet. One boy with them is weeping, crying, “beautiful feet. beautiful feet.”
On August 5th, the final call: made it to the Land Rovers. Swollen river is receded enough to cross over. We will call you on the other side.
We don’t know who or why they were killed. But we do know the overarching reason they were there. Some were there a long time. Others were in their first term. Some were just visiting.
At a dinner the night before they left, they used words like: “Compelled by God. Called. Great urgency to get back to the valley.”
They all knew the risk. They had extensive permissions for each stage of the route. They went by the safer route even though it was longer and more demanding. Yet several said yes, Jesus, it is worth it.
The team had said on the way back they needed a day of rest. They were to have a day of worship. Later the FBI came and brought me some of the items from my husband’s body. In between lists were sermon notes, stained with blood. Was this what he had shared that day? In the jottings he noted Ephesians 2:8-10, Ephesians 5:2, and 2 Corinthians—we are the aroma of Christ. In the side note he had scribbled, “use the Nuristani Goat Cheese Story.”
Some aromas take some getting used to. Takes time to develop a taste for Nuristani cheese. It spends weeks in animal skins hanging from the sides of donkeys. The smell of men, horses, donkeys, and the cheese itself are all a pungent odor permeating it. You can smell it for miles. Some find it disgusting. Some—when they are hungry enough—try it and found it’s salty flavor enhances the otherwise dry and stale bread. Then you’re hooked and you can’t wait for more.
It was their 5th trip. Tom thought it would be the last. The first time we asked to go. The other times we were begged to come. “Please, please, come and care for us.”
If Tom were here, he would say: in difficult and hard to reach places, grace is not discussed or debated. The incarnation has to be seen and experienced. In powerful and vengeful communities, talk of grace and vulnerability is too foreign—too distasteful—it needs small doses over time. Some have to acquire a taste for grace. They have to be hungry enough. The aroma of grace has to permeate everything. It has to be seen as transforming. It has to change the very flavor of life. It has to bring new life. Those who dare to taste it will say: come back. We like what we have tasted, and we want more.
It takes time. Maybe a whole life time. It takes energy—the willingness to be spent, to be poured out, to wear yourself out. Bob Dylan said, “Die in your footsteps.” It takes patience with those acquiring a new taste.
She quotes John Piper’s poem:
Behold the mercy of our King,
Who takes from death its bitter sting,
And by His blood, and often ours,
Brings triumph out of hostile pow’rs,
And paints, with crimson, earth and soul
Until the bloody work is whole.
What we have lost God will restore -
That, and Himself, forevermore.
May God restore his Kingdom in Afghanistan. May Nuristanis catch a whiff of the aroma of Christ. Taste and See. May the global church be saturated with God’s infinite Christ and spread the aroma of grace in these hard places to the glory of God.
Source: http://www.justinlong.org/2010/10/capetown-2010-day-3-reflections-lcwe-incl-transcript-of-libby-littles-remarks-wife-of-martyred-tom-little/
