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Have you heard the expression “Boots on the Ground?” Well our Live Dead Missionaries are the boots on the Silk Road. Here we’d like to take a moment and allow one of them to share a snapshot of their life with you. Some names and details have been changed, but this is a true story from this colorful, vibrant, and sometimes surprising region.

Where we live in Central Eurasia there’s automobile traffic – not too different from most places around the world today.  For the most part it seems pretty familiar, not as safe or as regular as in the States or Europe, but not like something out of a video game either.  There are traffic lights that work – usually – and lanes in the road people follow – frequently – and ambulances and police cars and so on and so forth. What you don’t expect to see is someone lying face down on a busy street in broad daylight.

I was walking down the sidewalk the other day and noticed a small crowd in the street.  There was a pair of police officers talking on cell phones and maybe a half dozen other guys doing the same.  It looked like an odd place for a conference, until I realized they were all standing around what looked like a fairly young woman in a black dress lying on her face in the street.  When it occurred to me she wasn’t moving and didn’t look like she was breathing, I began to pray desperately for her even as I wondered, “Why doesn’t somebody do something, like first aid or something? Is this woman already dead? Are they that callous? Should I barge into this?”

As I wrestled with the decision, after what seemed like minutes, the woman moved slightly and adjusted her head. She had been lying down on a bag.  I don’t know if she had been hit by a car or just collapsed or something, but I was grateful to God she wasn’t dead.  As I went on my way, I couldn’t help comparing the scene to what probably would have happened at home: ambulances rushing in, medical professionals working, somebody doing something – and it hit me – just how valuable is life around here?  If the woman isn’t a friend or a relative, why should they care?  In this culture it seems people aren’t necessarily “expendable,” but other than family, maybe they aren’t all that important either.

For Christians every person’s life is precious, whether we know them or not, whether others value them or not, because the Lord made all of them and He loves them all.  I was comforted at the thought the woman was alive when I saw her last, but the thought that she might never hear the Gospel hits pretty hard.  That thought should remind us to keep praying for where we live, to do what lies in our ability to be a good witness for the Gospel.

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