How do you want your life.... easy or worthwhile?

Dan Terry - courtesy of Reuters

I'm reflecting on the lives of Dan Terry and Tom Little who were shot dead last week in Afghanistan. Theirs were lives well-lived, with over six decades of service to the Afghan people between them.  The BBC correspondent described Dan Terry as a man who "fixed lives - reconciling, peacemaking - and always, always laughing."  Dan had moved to Afghanistan from India with his parents when a teenager and loved the country and it's peoples.  He spoke multiple local dialects.  Both men lived lives in risky service of others.

Josh read the story, turned to me and said, "that's the kind of story I want people to tell about me when I'm dead."

But what motivated both Dan and Tom?  At Dan's memorial service, a friend read from the book of I John, "greater love has no one than to lay down his life for a friend," recalling that Dan Terry was both a friend of Jesus and a constant friend of the Afghan people.  Both men were "....inspired by their Christian faith" to live lives in risky service of others. We are grateful for their example, mourn their passing, look forward to the reunion to come and pray for forgiveness for their killers.