One who stayed

What Frans didn't say is that those accusations were beside the point, the aroma of Christ already so strong among them. Little, a 61-year-old optometrist, had worked four decades in Afghanistan, spoke fluent Dari, was referred to among Afghans as one of "the ones who stayed": He and Libby reared three daughters there, survived the Russian occupation, civil war, and Taliban takeover. When a rocket attack flattened one of his eye hospitals, he built clinics and expanded into remote areas. He was on his fifth trip to the Nuristan region when he and nine other aid workers were killed Aug. 5.

The year 2010 has brought multiple encounters with people like the Littles, "ones who stayed," men and women of whom the world is not worthy, as the writer of Hebrews calls them. One is Joel, pastor of an evangelical church in Baghdad. Asked how to pray for a congregation that has faced death all year long, he didn't ask for safety or prosperity but for his church to experience deliverance from a "spirit of religion, where we worship creation instead of the creator" and from "our spirit of pride, rooted as we are so close to ancient Babylon."

-  from "Aroma of Christ" by Mindy Belz, WORLD Magazine, January 1, 2011

That phrase, it comes back to my mind over and over again-
"the ones who stayed"...

(photo credit: AFP Photo/Handout/Courtesy of Tom Little Family/Newscom)