Elderly Missionary Couple Beaten but Keeping on with Orphan Work

Read the incredible story of missionary couple, John Bergen, 72, and his wife Eloise, 63, who endured a vicious beating by several men armed with machetes and clubs in Kenya. The Canadian couple moved to Africa four months ago to care for orphans and have vowed not to let the attack keep them from carrying on their work.

This is what the Bergen’s told reporters about their call to stay in Kenya and care for the orphans:

We want to stay because we know that this is where we’re supposed to be. God told us to come here, and we feel like we’re on an assignment here to help the orphans. There are many people — most people here don’t have enough to eat. We were growing gardens to help feed the orphans, and my husband and I minister in the outlying villages in the bush to people there, God’s healing power and love, and we feel after this ordeal that we’ll even have more to say to the people than we had before the ordeal.

Their faith and resiliance in the face of such an attack reminds me of the Apostle Paul when the Jews in Antioch stoned him and left him for dead (Acts 14:19-23). He went back there “strengthening the disciples” and “encouraging them that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Because of this ordeal, the Bergens are staying in Kenya with a greater passion to magnify the power and mercy of God through their work for the orphans, with “even more to say to the people” of God’s power and love!