Setback: My Personal Travail as a Missionary, the Triumph of Faith

"I am destined to proclaim the message, unmindful of personal consequences to myself." – Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

Her: "Daddy, Victor is not breathing."

Me: "What? How? For how long?"

Her: "since 7:00"

I will never forget that infamous conversation between my wife and I on the 18th of December 2014.

Within a minute, I was both sweating and shaking.

In an hours time, she told me how my pastors and church members have gathered and were praying for Victor to come back to life.

I tried praying, I couldn't find the right words. I spoke in tongues for a while. Then I called my pastor in Lagos. I told him what was going on. He started praying. He has been involved from the start when Victor was diagnosed with an abnormal heart.

I was in the Ivory Coast barely six months. Starting a new mission post as an independent missionary is a wild life. You are on your own. No money, no salary and no promise of any monthly remittance, except a few faithful friends and partners who gave from time to time as resources permit them. In my training, I was forbidden to beg or borrow and I've followed It so well, at times it saved my reputation.

Communication was very difficult. I could only manage to call Gloria a few times and my Pastor in Lagos twice. So I had very little influence on the situation.

At about 3:00PM I called Gloria and told her what she never imagined I could say. 'Treasure," I paused to find the right way to say it, "I think we should let Victor go." She was like 'What????" She thought I was joking.

After about a minute, it sank in that I said so.

Gloria has never disrespected me in our nearly 16 years of marriage. She was not going to do it on our worst day ever in life and as a couple, but she will register her disagreement.

I was breaking her heart. She never believed for one second today that Victor died. He has more than 15 convulsions in the last one year, then he will fall into a deep sleep then wake up just fine as if nothing happened. So, she knew well that Victor will soon wake up.

But he has never gone for this long. And he never ceased to breath. Nonetheless she knew Victor will soon wake. They have prayed for him from 7:00AM till 3:00PM, I thought God wanted him home. She has been holding his corpse for 5 hours she was giving up her son.

What makes it worse, in my absence Victor has been her companion. He was the most intelligent kid in the block. He spoke as an adult and constantly corrected his older siblings manners. Now she would give him up. No way!

My pastors and church people gathered at home in Ghana didn't want to break her heart, everyone prayed along but the elders began to make plans for taking the corpse to the mortuary.

Finally, Gloria reluctantly agreed. Still believing a miracle could happen on the way. I couldn't leave immediately. But a few friends in Abidjan made finances available for me to travel as early as possible the following day.

My father of blessed memory told me after my mum went home to be with God in 2009 that my mum was stronger in faith than he was. That was shocking to me. But then he added, that all women are stronger in faith than men. He gave me a prophecy that I will one day find out.

Since we discovered Victor had a deformed heart, I found out that Gloria was definitely stronger in faith than I. I'm a very emotional man. I don't like to see human pain.I can't stand human suffering. I dread seeing tears or blood.

Gloria would stand the devil in the eye and not be moved. She held that corpse and never shed a tear. Only God knew why I wasn't there.

Its now over two years but believe me, its like it happened just last night. And the wound is fresh. We have tried to move on but many think we are so strong.

For the first time I'm writing the events of that day. Just a tip of it. But I'll share my personal struggles so far.

1.The biggest decision I made in growing up as a Christian is to never blame God for any misfortune or unpleasant circumstance. It has helped to keep the right perspective. I never judge God by my experience. I judge my experience by the Word of God. Sometimes I don't understand immediately, but God is always right.

2. I didn't weep when Victor died because I had wept early in June. On the second Sunday of June 2014, on the first wedding anniversary of my pastor in Ghana and the dedication service of his first child, Victor had a major crisis as the service just began.

Everyone was thrown into prayer for Victor. Until then I had been strong, but seeing him convulsing and many people praying, I sat down on the altar. I started to ask God a question, "Father, if you had a son who was very sick and I could take away his pain, you know I'd do it immediately..." That was how far I went and I broke down and began to weep uncontrollably.

I kept repeating, you know I would do it....you know I'd do it.. Then my young pastor and a few people came over to console me. But from that day, I made up my mind if God wants Victor, He can have him.

3. Till today my question is never why would God take Victor so young, rather why would Victor be born with a deformed heart? I wait for that answer when I see the Father.

4. I have struggled with prayer and faith in God since then, not as bad as to disbelieve God, His character or His integrity. I wait for Him to make me truly understand what happened.

5. I hold that the privilege to serve in the mission exceeds the luxury of pain.

6. I remain eternally grateful to Gloria who was and is still stronger, and through it all taught me faith and steadfastness. She has scars of her own, I pray time and God will heal.

7. I still feel sad and regret sometimes guilty that may be, we failed Victor. I don't know. But I find it very difficult to talk about Victor himself. I have never really talked about him, just a few things. I honour him as the only one born in the mission field, died on the mission field.

For now, the work of evangelism, discipleship and missions is the passion and the drive, we will talk about Victor with the Lord, when we finally see, Face-to-Face.

The travails of a missionary.

David Pam McQuel