THE ONLY THING WORTH LIVING AND DYING FOR IS PEOPLE

Elam Stoltzfus, born and raised Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, felt a tug on his heart to go tell the world about Jesus and he did just that. He set off in 1972 with his pregnant wife, Barbara, and their three children to Guatemala which was in the midst of a brutal civil war at the time. Over the course of 19 years Elam and his family of six children had adventures of every sort and served God joyfully with their whole hearts. They worked faithfully and their ministry, New Life Missions, expanded continually. In addition to planting churches in villages which dotted the banks of the Passion River, and witnessing many new converts, marriages and baptisms, they opened the New Life Clinic so that they could attend to the local people's spiritual as well as physical needs. Elam thus became a "Jungle Doctor", and also actively included his wife and children in this leg of the Ministry. Barbara and their daughters would deliver many a "jungle baby" while Virgil, their son, would become a missionary pilot flying patients to the nearby Guatemala City in cases where they needed emergency care from a fully equipped hospital. The atheistic, communist, revo-lutionary guerillas had sent many spies into the Clinic over the years to see what the Stoltzfuses were really doing in Guatemala, and had kept a pretty sharp eye on them. Even so, they really couldn't believe what they were seeing. The Guatemalan culture was not one of people doing things for others for no personal gain at all. But no matter what they saw the family doing, they were still convinced that they had to work for either the US or the Guatemalan Government. "This Clinic is a place for healing, and its doors are open to anyone," Elam would always say. The guerrillas had demanded that they take a stand one way or another. But Elam didn't want to take any official stand, because that would turn people away from the Clinic and put them directly in the middle of the conflict. It would go against their reason for being there. They had seen many entire families come to know Jesus just because one person had been sick and found healing at New Life Clinic. Some of the guerrillas had been brought into the world by Barbara's hands and their mothers' lives saved because of the medical attention they received after delivery. Those families would not come near the Clinic anymore if the Stoltzfuses were to say they were not on the guerrilas' side. So, in response to the guerrillas' demand, they decided not to make any reply at all. Their silence was taken as an answer. Three top commanders of the Revolution wrote their orders and signed them: the New Life Clinic plus mission compound had to be burnt to the ground and the missionary pilot, their son Virgil, executed. On a dark night in August 1990, the Guatemalan guerrillas showed up at the Stoltzfuses' front door. They ordered the family outside and then sys-tematicaly started pouring canis-ters full of gasoline all over the house, clinic, and other buildings before setting everything alight. Their ministry was being burned to the ground! They also burned the light aircraft, and then took all the belongings and equipment they had raided from the house and Clinic and loaded them into the family's motorboat which was docked at the nearby shore. They couldn't get the engine started, so they coerced Virgil to perform this task and also be their driver as they set off into the darkness in the direction of Mario Mendez. There were two guerrillas and one sub-commander on board. Meanwhile, Elam sat down on the grass and just tried to take it all in. He looked around at all the men, strangers, walking around treating his life's work as though it were nothing. Here he was the head authority on his property - his wife and children's protector - and he was powerless to stop this! So many mission teams from so many churches over the years had come and sweat in the Petén heat to build this Clinic. So many missionaries and believers in the US had sent funds to make it all possible. It had taken so many years to build this place, and now in one night it was all being undone! Elam wondered just how this was all going to end and how they would pick up these pieces. He was also very worried about his son who was now a hostage of the URNG - the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union. xxx Virgil pulled the boat to shore just below Mario Mendez. It was sunrise. "You realize that we had to do this tonight, as we have information that your family works for the CIA," the head commander told Virgil matter-of-factly. A voice over the radio shouted orders using a secret code. The commander pulled a 9 mm pistol out from his belt and cocked it. "We need to take a walk. Let's go." Virgil knew he was about to be executed. The two men walked deeper into the jungle. "Look, I know what your family has been doing here in this country. I posed as a tourist once and came to the Clinic to see and report on what you were doing. I believe your family did a lot of good for this country." He almost looked apologetic. "But you see, I have my orders." He showed Virgil a little piece of paper. It was the orders for the previous night's events, bearing the signatures of the three top guerrilla comman-ders of the URNG. "You see, it says that the pilot is to be eliminated. That's you." Their eyes were locked. "Aren't you afraid?" The commander couldn't understand what he was seeing in Virgil's eyes - a peace that is beyond all understanding that only comes from God. "No," Virgil replied. "All my life, Jesus was my greatest Hero, and I'm about to meet Him! You can only kill my body, but my soul is about to go home." A battle raged inside the com-mander's heart. He had killed many people before. People he knew. People he had once called "friend". He also learned that Virigil had had the opportunity to kill some of his commanders earlier that night when he got hold of one of their guns, but had decided not to. He paced up and down. "There has to be some kind of honour in this war!" he shouted, throwing his hands up in agitation. Finally, he said, "I can't!" He dropped his gun to his side, turned his back on Virgil and walked away. Almost as though God was answering the wish of the guerrilla commander to be able to spare Virgil's life, the guerrillas at the nearby camp started making a lot of commotion. Eight men were approaching them in a small boat, armed only with a rope and a single machete between them. The guerillas sternly told them to leave. "We aren't leaving without Virgil," one of them said. "He's our friend, and we're not leaving without him." Another guerilla shouted, "Who are you to demand his release? You're crazy! You don't have any guns. We have the guns! We're in charge!" "I demand the release of Virgil Stoltzfus. If it hadn't been for him and his airplane that you just burned, my younger brother would be dead now. He was once bitten by a snake and Virgil flew him out to a hospital just in time." Another man added, "Virgil's father Elam and mother Barbara have treated us all in their Clinic - our friends, our families. Most of our brothers and sisters were born in their hospital." Another man said, "If it hadn't been for his mom, my wife and child wouldn't be alive." Finally, another man said, "Listen, we have 300 men right now out in the jungle, and if you don't release Virgil, we are going to storm you and there is no way you can kill us all. You might kill twenty or thirty of us - and I'll be the first one to take two or three bullets from your gun - but we are going to help our friend escape!" Now the guerrillas really didn't know what to do. No one had ever dared to stand up to them. And they were very threatened by the idea of 300 men ready to storm their camp. The commander grabbed his radio and talked with his senior again. At last, he motioned for Virgil to come to the radio. "You may have won the battle, but you cannot win the war. I'm releasing you to these men, but we'll get their names. They will be shot for what they did. And Virgil, if you do not turn yourself in voluntarily within seventy-two hours and support our Revolution, we will find you wherever you go in this world, and we will execute you." Virgil just smiled and handed the radio back to the commander. God had so clearly stepped in and spared his life! Then the men got into their boat and rowed off. However, Virgil still felt over-whelmed by a feeling of utter futility. He thought, "God, in only one night we lost everything we've worked for our entire lives. It's as if my whole life and all our work was for nothing!" Then he felt in his heart that God said, "In the end, you'll have to leave all of these things behind anyway when Jesus returns." "So then, what's the point? What use is it to work another twenty years of my life and have the same thing happen again?" "Virgil, the only thing worth living and dying for is people. That's what Jesus died for: people." Virgil sighed. "Oh God, if only I could have a bank account in heaven where I could keep every-thing safe!" Then, as clear as anything he had ever heard, God spoke to his heart: "The only thing you can bring to heaven with you, Virgil, is people." With this realization, total peace washed over Virgil! Arriving at Mario Mendez, the whole village was there to receive them. Virgil thought about how many times his family had wondered if the people appre-ciated what they were doing for the community. He looked at all the crying faces as everyone hugged him, and he thought about what God had just shown him. He had been feeling as though he'd lost everything he had in the world, but he hadn't! Everyone wanted to hug him! He thought about the eight brave, or possibly crazy, guys who had come out to the jungle to rescue him, and he finally broke down and wept… xxx The family soon after had to leave for the US, but about a year after the fire - with the help of many family members and friends from many different churches - they returned to Guatemala and started the arduous journey of cleaning up and rebuilding everything. A new, bigger clinic was built. A bigger and better airplane was purchased within a few years, and many more hundreds of hours were logged on it flying people to hospitals. After some more years, Elam passed away. But the real reason for Elam's mission in Guatemala still lives on in his wife and children, and now his grand-children! "Though he is dead, he still speaks." From: Jungle Breezes, Dara Stoltzfus, VMI Publishers, 2009.