Carrie McDonnall is a hero

Missionaries are a special breed.

Yes, I know that as Christians we're all supposed to be missionaries. But I'm talking about people who leave home and kindred and go to places where at the very least they will face sacrifice, and at most they'll be putting themselves in harm's way.

Of course, the best missionaries would deny that there's anything special or heroic about them. They're humble and self-effacing.

But 27-year-old Carrie McDonnall is a young woman that I believe deserves so much more admiration than the Jessicas, Britneys and Parises that garner the world's adulation.

Carrie is still recovering from critical shrapnel wounds she sustained when her husband David and three fellow Baptist missionareis were killed in a 2004 drive-by attack in Iraq.

I haven't yet read Carrie's book, Facing Terror, but I want to. In her book, Carrie says she doesn't regret going to Iraq to, in her words, "share the love of Christ."

And she says she would go back overseas as a missionary if that's what God wants.

Speaking to the Southern Baptists' 2004 gathering, Carrie McDonnall said: "Make no mistake, David and I went to Iraq out of God’s call on our lives to see His name glorified among the nations. That includes the hard and violent places.

"My Jesus bears scars on his body from the violence he endured. How could we sit back and say ‘I can’t go because it’s too hard,’ especially when the world is saying, ‘You just can’t do that’?

"Trust me, for my Jesus, it’s the least I could do."

Wow.

For more on Carrie McDonnall:

A USA Today article on the incident that claimed her husband's life

Carrie speaks to the SBC in 2004

A Baptist Press article

A review of Carrie's book