Reply #189: I think I've got one example

[LanternWaste]

1986 and her name was Kerri Anne Messner. A fellow parishoner from my (small) church. She was nineteen and had just graduated from nursing school. She told me that she felt compelled to join up with a community missionary group made up of three different denominations from my area. I was devasted as we had been going out for five months and I really didn't want to engage in a prolonged absence from her. But on the other hand, I was really, really proud of her.

She worked with a small group of doctors and teachers in the village of Cuachin, bringing healthcare and education to the inhabitants. She wrote often and told me how much she enjoyed the work she was doing and how fullfilling it was to her.

Three months later, I received a phone call from her parents who told me she had been killed during a guerilla raid on the village.

I think she's an example of a "good missionary", but that's really just my opinion. For all I know, maybe she did try to "force" religion on the villagers and make them "succumb" to our culture. I can't prove it one way or the other, but knowing her for the time I did, I just have to doubt that she was manipulating a third world village "for her God". I think she was just trying to help people...