Baptist Press Article to Honor Missionaries who Serve in Tough Places

Three Southern Baptist workers at Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen — physician Martha Myers, hospital administrator Bill Koehn and purchasing manager Kathy Gariety — were killed Dec. 30, 2002, when a militant gunman burst into a room where they were holding an early-morning meeting.

Ginny Dent Brant

CLEMSON, S.C. (BP) — In 1997, I entered a country far different from my own. As a trustee of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, I visited Yemen in July of that year. 
At that time, trustees were debating whether to keep Jibla Baptist Hospital open. The hospital workers requested the trustees see their work before making a final determination. I was ill-prepared for the experiences that awaited me.

 
Before my arrival, physician Martha Myers had been kidnapped and miraculously released. That news made my steps unsteady. After safely passing through customs and seeing men with machine guns on their backs and jambiyas (daggers) across their chests, I was alarmed.

 
After winding four hours through rugged terrain to Jibla Baptist Hospital, I heard alarming details that elevated my normally low blood pressure: Rabid dogs were wandering, malaria was spreading, water was scarce, electricity was sporadic, the hospital was under red alert due to threats from al-Qaida and the airlines had just gone on strike.

They had me at rabid.

I was officially in culture shock. And who’s al-Qaida?
But this kind of news was status quo to the workers called to serve in Yemen. I would only sample a taste of their everyday lives. Yet, no complaints.

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