A Grain of Wheat
The capture of Wycliffe missionary, Chet Bitterman, in March, 1981, created little media attention in Western countries.
He was kept in captivity by a Columbian guerrilla group called M-19 for seven weeks, while his wife, Brenda, and their two daughters waited in Bogota. The guerrilla group demanded Wycliffe Bible translators leave Columbia.
They shot him just before dawn – a single bullet to the chest. Police found his body in the bus where he died, in a parking lot in the south of town. He was clean and shaven, his face relaxed. A guerrilla banner wrapped his remains. There were no signs of torture.
In the year following Chet’s death, applications for overseas service with Wycliffe Bible Translators doubled, and the trend continued into the following years.
God’s way of mobilising men and women for missions is different to ours. The death of a choice vessel doesn’t scare others off. It makes them rise to the real challenges of life.
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit (John 12:24).
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