Total Abandon Gary Witherall and Elizabeth Cody See more products like this in the Biographies category! Home > Biographies > Total Abandon

Your Price: $14.99 ISBN: 0-8423-8899-0 On Nov. 21, 2002, Bonnie was shot to death by a man at a prenatal clinic in Sidon, Lebanon. She helped poor, pregnant Palestinian women prepare for childbirth at the clinic, occasionally giving some a Bible or a Christian tract. Gary, who worked at a church, usually slept in when Bonnie worked at the clinic in the morning. Even when he's not being asked to talk about that day, he's somehow reminded. He'll go to a Starbucks and someone will ask him if he's the missionary whose wife was killed. He'll read a book and stumble on a passage about Bonnie's death. He even was watching a Discovery Channel special on Muslim-Christian conflict when he saw a horrific sight. "Before I could deal with it, there's Bonnie's body on a stretcher," he said. "I had never seen the footage before. I didn't even know it existed." The murder became --- to some --- a symbol of Muslim intolerance. Web sites devoted to Bonnie popped up all over, filled with angry e-mails about Muslim hatred of Christians. "We are at WAR with ISLAM. The sooner we ACCEPT the TRUTH the sooner we will WIN!" one blogger said after hearing about Bonnie's death. Those sentiments, though, anger Witherall. He has a deep affection and respect for the Muslims he met in Lebanon. He said he doesn't blame a group for Bonnie's murder. "Stop treating them like they're all fanatics, like they're all going to go around shooting people," he said. "There are a lot of wonderful Muslims there. We have to start seeing Arab people as people." He's already visited Lebanon several times since Bonnie's murder. He misses the food, the beauty of the Mediterranean Sea, the Arab people's love of leisurely conversation and their hospitality. "I feel more at home in southern Lebanon than I do in England or in the U.S.," he said. "People really care about me there." Once, when he returned to Sidon, he drove by a coffee shop where he and Bonnie had befriended the Muslim owner. He was telling his companion how much he liked the shop's owner when --- as if on cue --- the man walked out of the shop and spotted Gary. The shop owner bolted across four lanes of traffic as cars slammed on their brakes, said the Rev. Buddy Hoffman, Gary's friend and companion that day. "Gary gets out of the van, runs over [to] the man and in the middle of all this traffic, this man just bawls on his shoulder," Hoffman said. "You could see the love that was there and the sorrow this man had." Gary loves it so much he can't wait to return. "I wish I was there right now," he said.

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