Back from Iraq, Pastor Describes Near Miss, Laments U.S. Missionary Deaths

by Chad Groening
March 25, 2004

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(AgapePress) - A Canadian pastor who recently returned from Iraq says his team was supposed to be in Mosul the very same day four Baptist missionaries from the U.S. were murdered there.

Jeff Christopher is pastor of the Sanctuary Church of Oakville, Ontario, a Baptist church just outside of Toronto. He has just returned from a two-week trip to Iraq, where he visited with missionaries providing food to the Iraqis.

Christopher says his team was supposed to be in the area where the attack occurred. "That is considered probably the safest part of Iraq," he says, "and we were actually headed to Mosul that particular day. We were going to go to Kirkuk and then to Mosul. But the Sunday before, we just received such confirmation that we had found what we were looking for that we didn't need to go any further."

The pastor says even though his team was Canadian rather than American, it could easily have been they that went to be with the Lord that day. "To the terrorists it makes no difference; you look Western, you're the target. So security is an issue for sure," he says.

Christopher points out that his team had five members, just as there were five Baptists missionaries in the American group that was attacked. "All the word coming out back home was that there were five Baptist workers," he says, "so our families were pretty concerned. But we feel so bad for the families [of those] that were killed there."

Of the four U.S. missionaries killed in Iraq, one has recently been laid to rest in her hometown of Bakersfield, California. Karen Watson, 38, was among those gunned down in Mosul last week.

According to Associated Press, Watson spent eight years as a sheriff's deputy in Kern County before becoming a missionary for the Southern Baptist Convention. In eulogizing the slain missionary, Sheriff's Lieutenant Kevin Wright said of Watson that, from her first day on the job, she gave 100 percent.