They pray for those who tried to kill them in Ethiopia

Press, 22 February 1978, Page 19

They pray for those who tried to kill them in Ethiopia

Pam Smith says that her husband was miraculously protected 10 months ago from a bullet fired at point-blank range from a Somali guerrilla’s rifle. The muzzle blast threw him to the ground, but he got up unharmed. The man beside him was killed instantly. The incident took place in the Ogaden desert in the area of some of the most intense fighting between the Ethiopian Government troops and the Western Somali Liberation Front. Graeme and Pam Smith missionaries from Rotorua. were supervising an irrigation project at Gode, 400 miles south of the Ethiopian capital , Addis Ababa, and about 300 miles from the Somali border. They had been advised to leave their isolated compound where they were working with a tiny staff, but they had decided to stay on, even after an outpost 70km to the south fell to the guerrillas. Pam Smith and her four children, aged from five to 10. are in New Zealand on six months furlough. Her husband was not with her when she was in Christchurch recenty, but he will join her later. Their compound had been razed, but their project —to irrigate IO.OOOha and re-settle 2000 seminomadic families — had been left intact, Pam Smith says. She too. carries the scars of her own wound —a weal that runs from just below the knee, through a leg. and out the other side. That was the path a bullet took, also fired at point-blank range. She and her husband had lived at Rotorua, where Graeme Smith was an agricultural advisor. They were well set up; Pam was settled and happy. She w-as slower than” her husband to adjust to an opportunity to do missionary work in Ethiopia for two years, when it came through World Vision in 1976. She put a number of Conditions to God, she

says — the security of their home and possessions during their absence, and protection for their children in a wilderness. He “reassured her” from the scriptures, and added a string of bonus promises from Psalms and Proverbs, the significance of which she did not realise at the time. Among them: “You need not be afraid of . .. the plots of wicked men for the Lord is with you. He protects you. You shall not die but live .. .” On the night of the attack, last April, the family and three others were sheltering in the Smiths’ bungalow from a severe sandstorm. At 1.30 a.m. Graeme Smith saw a light in the office across the compound. Going to investigate, he walked into an armed ambush. At gun-point he was ordered to get $5OOO from the safe. He understood enough Somali to know that money was wanted, but not enough to answer. Besides, the combination lock on the safe had jammed from the hacking attempts made by the guerrillas to open it. He could only shrug, and his noncompliance irritated the guerrillas. He and the two occupants of the house — the only other on the compound — were dragged on to a patch of ground to be shot. The assailants were five feet away, shouldering sophisticated Russian rifles. There was a difference of seconds between the first rifle blast and the last. The first man died instantly. Second in the line of fire, Graeme Smith was blown off his feet, Pam Smith says. They do not know whether the force that hit him was the muzzle blast or the power of God. He lay on his back thinking he was dead and feeling no pain. He raised his head, saw the guerrillas retreating, and realised he was not in heaven. Seeing him stir, one guerrilla raised his rifle to shoot again, but Graeme Smith slumped, and the shot never came.

Once the compound was clear, he felt himself over, incredulous that he did not appear to have a scratch, and raced to his wife and family.

In the meantime — a space of about 30 minutes — another 20 guerrillas had broken into the bungalow where Pam Smith, the four children, and the three others were hiding. The adults were bundled outside and forced to sit in a circle, guns in their backs. They were joined moments later by the children. “I can remember sitting in the circle looking up at the stars and feeling a real peace in my heart,” Pam Smith says. “I also remember thinking that we were sitting in the spot where we always prayed. Then I waited for the shots. “At that stage firing broke out. It seemed to come from above us. It was a different kind of rifle fire from the guerrilla’s — deeper somehow. The guerrillas took to their heels. I later thought it might have been the shots they fired at the three men, but the noise did not come from that direction. "We got up and ran back into the house. It was then that I collected the bullet in my leg. “Graeme arrived back at the house at the same time. They put a tourniquet around my leg and we all dived under the bed. Two of the adults were nurses. They both knew I was a profuse bleeder and expected me to faint. We were under the bed for four hours and I never fainted. One of the nurses fainted instead. “It was then that that scripture verse came back to me: ‘You shall not die but live, and declare the wonderful works of God.’ We also thought we would have to buy a bed with longer legs. We all got sore noses from the bed springs.” At day break they drove to the nearest village to attend to Pam Smith’s wound. They also met Don McClure, a young mis-

sionary who was the third of the three men lined up by the guerrillas the night before. McClure, the last to be shot at, tripped on a grass verge as he turned to flee, according to Pam Smith. The bullets skimmed his shoulder as he fell to the ground and he was left with powder burns. The guerrillas fired a machine gun as he zig-zagged off into the night but none of the bullets nit him. Pam Smith’s wound was

stitched, and that afternoon the family were flown out of Gode to Nairobi. There, her wound was attended to by a United States doctor who was “amazed at what the bullet had missed.” "If it had been Jem to the right it would have gouged my main artery and I would have bled to death. Had it been slightly higher it would have shattered my kneebone and my leg would have been amputated,” Pam Smith says.

They concluded that Graeme had received some sort of invisible protection in line with the “promises” they had received. They learned later that 1.30' a.m. in the Ogaden Desert was 10.30 a.m. New Zealand time at the Rotorua Baptist Church on the Sunday, and that the congregation had spent an unusual length of time that morning praying for them. “I’ve no persona! regr-

ets,” Pam Smith says. “Probably our greatest relief is that the incident seems to have had absolutely no effect on the children. They have not had nightmares and they want to go back. Each night they pray for the guerrillas.” In April, the Smiths will return to Africa — but not to Ethiopia. Theft- next project will be in Kenya, tending cattle and growing crops.

By

BRIAR CAMBOURN