From the Bench
HER NAME IS MARTHA
The morning paper was late again. That’s three times in the past two weeks. The last Monday of the year was starting off on the wrong foot. The problems we have to put up with this day and age.
While my wife called the AJC (I think they recognize her voice by now), I got on the internet to catch up with the news. It’s good to have a backup.
MSNBC.com had the usual menacing picture of Saddam with an ominous doomsday headline. That has become standard fare, so I skipped to the smaller headlines.
"Terrorist kills three hospital workers in Yemen." My attention perked up. I know a doctor in Yemen. I clicked to the story.
One of the victims was a woman. The doctor I know is a woman. The attack occurred at a Baptist hospital. This doctor is a missionary, working in a Baptist hospital. Then I began fearing the worst, but nowhere in the story did it give the victims’ names.
I turned on the TV to the most popular morning show. Maybe I had missed it, but there was no mention of the tragedy.
By now my oatmeal was cold, but it didn’t matter any more. I was thinking about the doctor, and the times she had visited my church, talked to our young kids in mission studies, told them about Yemen, showed them examples of the clothing, explained how primitive the society was, and how she was forbidden to talk about Christianity or to display anything Christian.
Instead, she LIVED her Christianity, ministering to the women and children through healthcare that would not have existed without her. She travelled the countryside in a nation that is notorious for its anti-Christian zeal. After stateside furloughs, she returned again and again, despite warnings of the perils she faced. She knew, but returned anyway.
Her name is Martha Myers, and she became a Christian as a little girl living in Avondale Estates. She moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and later became a doctor. After going to Yemen as a medical missionary, she would return to Avondale Baptist when she was on leave. Several members became close friends. I was not so fortunate, although I got to meet her through our kids’ mission groups.
There was nothing flamboyant, or pious, or "preachy" in her speech. But there was a quiet, self-assured firmness that made you feel that here was a lady who knew, without doubt, the direction her life must take.
The TV was no help with names. I turned it off and went out back to the shop, still thinking about her, the way memories suddenly get sharper and more vivid at times like this.
Perhaps the facts were coincidental, I thought. Hoped.
I was gathering supplies to continue work on the sunroom. The project has consumed my waking moments for the past month. Frustration. Fatigue. Short temper. Why do my projects always get so complicated?
The phone rang and I picked up just as my wife was answering in the house. It was our son.
"Dad, did you hear about the killings in Yemen?" He had been on the internet, too.
"Yes. But I didn’t get any names."
"It was Martha."
I don’t remember what I said, if anything. I was crying. How useless. How unfair. How undeserved.
Suddenly the sunroom wasn’t that important. I went back inside and turned on the TV, to the most popular morning show, hoping to get more details.
The reporter was saying that the Ford F150 pickup was again the most popular vehicle in America, and that Hillary Clinton had just been voted the most popular female in the country.
I turned off the TV and went to work on the sunroom.