Beaten missionaries plan to return to Africa
CALGARY, AB—A missionary couple who were brutally attacked at their Kenyan farm says fear will not stop them from returning to Africa—but they won't go back to Kenya.
John and Eloise Bergen, missionaries with Kelowna-based Hope for the Nations, have emphasized that forgiveness has not only freed them from anger, it has given them courage to return to Africa and continue their work with orphans.
"There are, unbelievably, many, many opportunities opening up to us," says John, 70. He laughed and joked while meeting with Calgary media in August, while Eloise, 66, sat quietly beside him. "I know why I'm alive today. I'm not alive to stay home and fossilize. I have to go and finish the job," John declared.
John says they will not return to Kenya, where he and Eloise were attacked.
As a precaution, Hope for the Nations will no longer allow its missionaries to live on farms like the one the Bergens lived on. The organization will also provide security measures such as steel gates and guard dogs.
The Bergens were attacked the evening of July 9 by six men, two of whom had been hired to protect them. Brandishing sticks and machetes, they jumped John from behind in the dark, slashed his legs, broke both his arms and threw him into the bushes, leaving him for dead.
"This man wrestled me to the ground and had me in such a tight headlock that I couldn't breathe. All I could say was 'Jesus, help me,' John said, his hands clutching his own throat as he recalled the incident. "The sticks came down and the machetes came down on my body—the pain was incredibly great, but there was also something else so unexplainable—almost like there was a hand between the stick and the impact on my body."
John said that as it was happening, he was wondering why it didn't hurt more than it did.
"When you go through something like that, you just have to thank the Lord. How can you do anything else? There had to be angels protecting me."
The men then turned their attention to Eloise, who was indoors having a hot bath. She was repeatedly sexually assaulted and beaten, her face and throat slashed. When the attackers fled, she ran naked from the house calling for John. Still barely conscious, he called to her from the bushes until she discovered him. Wrapping a blanket around herself, the petite woman dragged him to their Suzuki truck and drove 20 minutes to the nearest hospital.
"This is the little lady who saved my life," John said admiringly.
"It's a miracle that he had given me a refresher driving lesson just that morning," Eloise said with a laugh.
After receiving hundreds of stitches and enduring surgeries to implant pins into broken bones and wire to mend their shattered jaws, the Bergens lay in their hospital beds repeating the words "I forgive you in the name of Jesus" to their attackers.
"If we don't forgive, it's like poison in our own system," Eloise said.
John said it took two weeks to come to the place where he could forgive the men who nearly took his life.
"I was determined that I was going to be released from the anger," John said.
While recuperating in Nairobi, Kenya, the Bergens asked friends to send a pastor to the prison where the men were being held to share the gospel and God's message of forgiveness.
"I can hardly wait for the moment when I can meet these guys and we're one in Christ and we can put our arms around them and can assure them of the forgiveness that I've spouted off about here," John said. "I know that the process of justice must be served, but there has to be compassion and mercy, so people can come out on the positive side, rather than the destroyed side."
Eloise said that if they had not been able to forgive their attackers, she and John would most likely be in a "mental institution."
The Bergens remain in e-mail contact with friends in Kenya who are keeping them up-to-date on the judicial proceedings. Two of the men were released on bail while four remain behind bars. Although determined to return to Africa, the couple must endure many more months of rehabilitation and will stay with family south of Calgary. Well-wishers can follow their progress at
www.bergensmission.com.
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