Four American Baptist missionaries die in Iraq

Four Baptist missionaries serving in Iraq paid the ultimate price in their service to God March 15 when they were killed in a drive-by shooting in Mosul. A fifth missionary - who was married to one of the slain missionaries - sustained life-threatening injuries and is in critical condition.

The five workers served with the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Church.

Larry T. Elliott, 60, and Jean Dover Elliott, 58, of Cary, N.C.; and Karen Denise Watson, 38, of Bakersfield, Calif, died instantly. David E. McDonnall, 28, of Rowlett, Texas, died the next morning while en route to a military support hospital in Baghdad. Four U.S. military surgeons worked for six hours to save his life, according to IMB.

McDonall’s wife, Carrie Taylor McDonnall, 26, was airlifted to a hospital in Germany and remains in critical condition.

The Elliotts were scouting the best location in Iraq for a water purification project, Michelle DeVoss of Cary, N.C., told The Associated Press. DeVoss is a member of First Baptist Church – the Elliotts’ home church – in the Raleigh suburb.

“They were fully aware of the risk and they were just called to do it,” said DeVoss.

Four other Southern Baptist missionaries have died overseas in the past 14 months, including three killed at a hospital in Yemen.

Watson was a detention officer with the Kern County Sheriff’s Department in Bakersfield before joining the Richmond, Va.-based mission board just over a year ago, according to Bill Bangham, an IMB spokesman. She arrived in Iraq earlier this month to help the Elliotts and others study how best to allocate the mission board’s efforts of ministries of mercy, Bangham said.

U.S. Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, a spokesman for American forces in the northern city of Mosul, told AP that the victims were traveling in one car on the eastern side of the city when they were attacked.

The four died from bullet and shell fragment wounds from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, according to the IMB’s Web site.

Larry Elliott had experience in disaster relief that included helping Honduras recover from Hurricane Mitch in 1998, DeVoss said. He first traveled to Iraq last month to survey the country’s needs and his wife joined him a few weeks later, DeVoss said. The couple planned to return to their home in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa later this month and move permanently to Iraq in June, she said.

Clyde Meador, IMB’s executive vice president, said the mission board, as well as the missionaries, are aware of the danger in serving in countries like Iraq.

“Our personnel, as Americans and Christians, are well aware of the risk of living and serving in a place like Iraq,” Meador said in a March 16 press conference. “Yet their love for the Iraqi people and obedience to the conviction of God’s leadership have been expressed in a willingness to take that risk, even to giving their lives.”

Meador said IMB has been active in missions efforts in Iraq for months. “Southern Baptists have sought ways to share God’s love with the Iraqi people,” he said. “Last fall Southern Baptist churches in the United States sent more than 3 million pounds of food to Iraq. The workers involved in this attack were researching the need for future humanitarian projects.”

IMB President Jerry Rankin said the organization is deeply grieved over the loss of the four missionaries. “In times like this, there are no words that will take away the pain of a loved one’s violent death,” Rankin said. “Everyone in the IMB family and everyone who loves Southern Baptists’ overseas workers are grieving with the family members and co-workers of these precious souls.

We are grateful that God himself comes alongside us in our deepest sorrow and comforts us in a way no one else can.”

— E.P. News