May 22, 2000
Prayer cited in missionary child's return
___By Mark Kelly
___International Mission Board
___BOUAKE, Cote d'Ivoire (BP)--A Southern Baptist missionary in Cote d'Ivoire was wounded May 8 when gunmen hijacked his car and drove away with the missionary's son still in the vehicle.
___But the miraculous resolution of the incident illustrates the critical importance of prayer support for missionaries, contended Wanda Lee, leader of Woman's Missionary Union.
___Travis Forsythe was driving home to Dabakala, where he and his wife serve among the Djimini people group. His 2-year-old son, Nathanael, was with him.
___When Forsythe stopped for food late in the day at the city of Bouake, two bandits took the car from him at gunpoint. Forsythe clung to the open door of the vehicle, trying to convince the gunmen to let him get Nathanael out. The driver shot and wounded Forsythe, who chased the car as it sped away with his son in the back seat.
___Forsythe's wife, Kim, and their 5-year-old daughter, Gloria, were not with him at the time. Kim Forsythe was observing her 30th birthday at home, ordered to bed by her doctor because of complications in her pregnancy.
___That the car-jacking occurred on her birthday may have been the saving grace for her husband and son, Lee said.
___Many Southern Baptist publications carry prayer calendars with the names of missionaries and their birth dates. Thousands of Southern Baptists were praying for Kim Forsythe as the gunmen were attacking her husband and kidnapping her son.
___Forty-five minutes after the car-jacking, the gunmen put Nathanael out of the vehicle and left him alone on a dark road in the village of Katiola.
___Villagers put him in the care of a midwife, who fed and bathed the child and put him to bed while authorities located his parents.
___Nathanael was back with his father by 1:30 a.m., just hours after his abduction. His father's injury was superficial, with the bullet passing through his right side between the ribs without hitting any vital organs.
___"We never completely know what we are praying for when we pray for missionaries on the prayer calendar," Lee said. "It is humbling and exhilarating when we learn about experiences like the Forsythes' and know, in faith, that our prayers played a role in resolving it.
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