January 27, 2003
Texas mission worker believes God spared him for a reason
___By Mike Creswell
___SBC International Mission Board
___JIBLA, Yemen (BP)--Don Caswell saw the armed man walking toward him and knew the gunman was coming to kill him.
___"I was looking at him, and I saw him look at me. And that instant I realized he was coming right toward the pharmacy," Caswell explained in a soft Texas accent.
___Caswell, a pharmacist, was shot twice during theDec. 30 attack at Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen, but after emergency surgery and treatment he is recovering. When he was able to talk about the shootings, he attributed his survival to a miracle of God.
DON CASWELL of Eustace believed he was going to die when he encountered a lone gunman inside Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen. The short-term mission worker believes God spared him for a purpose. (Mike Creswell/BP Photo)
___Three other Southern Baptist workers, physician Martha Myers, hospital administrator William Koehn and purchasing manager Kathleen Gariety, were shot dead by the gunman.
___For 35 years, Southern Baptists have treated 40,000 patients a year at the 45-bed hospital in Jibla, a small town in southern Yemen located 125 miles south of Sanaa, the nation's capital. Yemen is a rugged desert country that lies along Saudi Arabia's southern border.
___Don and Teri Caswell had worked at the hospital for about 18 months of a two-year term with the International Mission Board's International Service Corps. Their term was to end in June.
___He grew up in Levelland, near Lubbock, but both he and his wife call Eustace home. They are members of First Baptist Church there.
___Mrs. Caswell had dropped her husband off around 7:30 a.m. that last Monday in December. She made a quick stop by a grocery before arriving back home to have breakfast with their boys, Ben, 11, and Caleb, 5.
___At the hospital, Caswell and a pharmacist from Russia handled a flurry of prescription refills. Around 8 a.m., they heard gunshots.
___"It is not unusual in Yemen for people to shoot guns off, but normally not that early in the morning. And it sounded like it was real close," Caswell recalled.
___He walked out the door of the one-room pharmacy and looked down the corridor. He saw a man come out of Bill Koehn's office.
___"I noticed he wasn't running real fast but he was moving quickly, and I noticed a gun in his hand," Caswell said. "It was a pistol of some kind. I couldn't tell for sure what kind it was."
___As he made eye contact with the gunman, Caswell moved back into the pharmacy room, thinking he would move behind a work counter. But the gunman entered immediately behind Caswell and stood no more than 5 feet away.
___"At that time, I knew he was going to shoot me," Caswell recounted. "An incredible thing about that was that I wasn't filled with a lot of fear. I had a certain peace about all this.
___"Then a shot came, and I think probably in the back of my mind was, 'Well, where is he going to shoot and is it going to hurt very much?'
___"He got me right here in the side. It wasn't just an unbearable pain but it did hurt pretty bad. I remember that shot, and I thought I heard two more quick shots but I didn't feel anything else."
___Caswell was hit twice, once in each side, although the second shot apparently entered from the back as he spun around and fell from the impact of the first shot. Caswell thinks he remembers hearing three shots and speculates one shot just missed him completely.
___Miraculously, the bullets missed major organs, arteries or other body parts that could have killed him. One bullet remains inside him; doctors say they will leave it as long as it causes no problems.
___Today, Caswell marvels that the gunman killed three missionaries with deadly precision, then failed to kill him with two shots.
___"I know for sure God's hand was in on it and I didn't die for a reason," he said. "The ultimate reason I know is that God will be glorified."
___In the warped perception of time in crisis events, Caswell clearly recalls talking to God in that quick-but-long few seconds between the time he was shot and when help arrived in the form of doctors and nurses.
DON CASWELL with his wife, Teri, and their sons, Ben, 11, and Caleb, 5, are waiting to determine what God wants them to do next. If it's to return to Yemen, they're willing. (Mike Creswell/BP Photo)
___"This whole time, I was just talking to God, and it did hurt a little, but ... I didn't feel like I'm dying, whatever that feels like, you know," he said. "But still at this time I never was unconscious. I just had this peaceful feeling.
___"Seems to me maybe I was talking to God out loud. Maybe it was just in my mind, but I was asking the Lord if this was the time he was going to take me, if I was going to die there.
___"I remember telling him that, 'Lord, if you want to take me, it's fine, but I would really like to stay here and not leave Teri and the boys alone here like this."
___Doctors rushed Caswell to an operating room, where most supplies had been packed away due to an impending transfer of the hospital. But missionary physician Judy Williams had insisted on leaving out enough instruments and other items for emergency surgery.
___She asked Australian physician Ken Clezy to do the exploratory surgery on Caswell because she was the only one who could locate packed supplies quickly.
___After getting a phone call telling her Caswell had been "hurt," Mrs. Caswell tried to call the hospital. When she got no answer, she drove the four or five miles to the hospital at breakneck speed, honking the horn to clear people out of the way.
___Seeing soldiers around the hospital, she knew something major had happened. Only when she got inside did she understand that her husband had been shot. She was able to speak to him and kiss him just before they wheeled him in for surgery.
___Exploratory surgery ascertained that the bullets had missed vital organs and that there was no internal bleeding. As soon as he recovered sufficiently, the Caswells went to another country to recuperate.
___As they walked around town with their boys, visited a park and bought ice cream cones, the couple kept looking at each other, gratitude fairly shining in their faces for this extended time they now have together. After so much uncertainty, Mrs. Caswell is finally able to kid him about being shot in his "love handles."
___She said with a grin: "We're just thankful he's a little overweight."
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