February 24, 1999

Threat of persecution didn't
stop West Texans in India
___By Roy Jones II
___Abilene Reporter-News
___ABILENE--The banner headline in The Sunday Times of India served as a chilling welcome to India for five members of a medical mission team from Abilene as they landed at the Mumbai (Bombay) airport Jan. 24.
___"Australian missionary, two sons burned alive," the headline screamed.
___The story reporting how

WEST TEXANS Mark Sivley and Bob Hawley treat a dental patient in Bangalore, India. (Photos by Roy Jones II)

a gang of Bajrang Dal activists had murdered 58-year-old Australian Baptist Graham Staines and his sons in a tribal village in Orissa sent the Texans scurrying for a map and made for an anxious 2 a.m. bus ride to another airport for their final flight on to Bangalore, in southern India.
___Orissa, they learned, was several hundred miles from where they would be working alongside Rebekah Naylor, the legendary missionary physician from Texas, at Bangalore Baptist Hospital.
___The Texans didn't experience any religious persecution during their two-week mission but were challenged and inspired by many native converts who have suffered less-serious reprisals yet continue to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ.
___Only two weeks before the Texans' arrival, one of the hospital chaplains was attacked by a gang of Hindu men as he made a hospice visit to a Christian in a tribal village outside Bangalore.
___"He couldn't walk for three days, but as soon as he could get back on his motorbike, he went right back to visiting--and he did it every day we were there. He was really an inspiration to me," said Bruce Lampert, director of pastoral care at Hendrick Medical Center in Abilene and leader of the first of two teams of doctors, dentists and nurses.
___Through the leadership of CEO Mike Waters, Hendrick sponsored the medical mission. Waters is chairman of the deacon body of First Baptist Church in Abilene and most of the team members are deacons

REBEKAH NAYLOR shows members of the team from Abilene a model of the hospital's campus.

there.
___Bob Hawley, a deacon at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, had been on numerous similar missions as a dentist, but never to India. He said he was "concerned" when he learned of the missionary's murder, but added, "I was just coming here for one reason, to serve the Lord, and I just claimed his divine protection."
___Plus, he said he knew that "literally hundreds of people back home are praying for our safety."
___In one tribal village, Hawley and fellow dentist Mark Sivley saw nearly 80 patients in one day, improvising with folding chairs and flashlights held by Lampert and Roy Jones, a journalist documenting the mission.
___Back at the Bangalore hospital, Gary Goodnight, an ear, nose and throat surgeon, conducted more than a dozen operations with Anita Thomas, also a talented artist whose paintings hang throughout the hospital. In one painted for the 25th aniversary of the hospital last year, Jesus, the Great Physician, is peering over the shoulder and expertly guiding the hand of a woman surgeon whose eyes look remarkably like Thomas'.
___Asked if it is a self-portrait, she just smiled.
___"That painting captures what we do here," said

GARY GOODNIGHT assists Anita Thomas during an ear operation.

Naylor, who described herself as "an administrator by day and a surgeon by night."
___"We don't force anybody to listen, but we try to create opportunities to witness," she said. The 150-bed hospital treated more than 89,000 patients last year, and chaplains reported more than 200 professions of faith grew out of the contacts first made at the hospital.
___"Considering the harassment and even persecution they face from their families if they accept Christ, that's a remarkable number and a tribute to God's goodness," Naylor said.
___Additionally, she noted, there are more than 600 Baptist churches in the Bangalore region, largely because of the influence of the hospital. For most of the 26 years, Naylor was the only Southern Baptist missionary allowed in the country.
___Three times, changes in the Hindu government have resulted in her license being suspended for up to eight months, but she hasn't given up. Lampert called Naylor "the closest thing to Lottie Moon we Southern Baptists have today."
___Naylor blushes, recalling that "India is the one place I said I would never serve."
___"But I never told the Foreign Mission Board that," she added. "This was a place where there was a need. They felt it was right, and after praying about it, I agreed. God has blessed me very richly."
___Naylor is the daughter of Robert Naylor, president emeritus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The senior Naylor turned 90 Jan. 24 and told his daughter in a birthday call he was praying for the medical team, too.
___Hendrick's second team included Dan Pope, a pediatrician and hospital chief of staff; Peter Norton, an OB/GYN who grew up on the mission field in South Africa; and registered nurses Jo Rake and Betty Joiner.
___The nurses' husbands, Oran Rake and Steve Joiner, pastor of First Baptist Church in Buffalo Gap, preached in various churches in and around Bangalore.
___

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