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STUDENT FOCUS Violent attack bears Gospel fruit for Garvins By David Roach When Carl Garvin enrolled at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life on the mission field. But he had no idea that he would nearly lose his life at the hands of brutal robbers armed with machetes and guns. Garvin, a 60-year-old student in Southern Seminary’s master of arts in theological studies – intercultural leadership program, was appointed in 2005 as an International Mission Board missionary to Moshi, Tanzania, along with his wife, Kay. Before becoming a missionary, Carl was a nurse, a soldier and a pastor for more than 20 years. Kay served as a schoolteacher for 18 years. Extensive service on short-term mission trips eventually led to the Louisiana natives feeling a call to fulltime missionary service in Tanzania. This past February in Tanzania the Garvins took a break from their normal routine of leading Bible studies and teaching English as a second language to travel two hours south with some American volunteers to a small town called Nyumba ya Mungu, where they planned to assist a local pastor with Bible school classes and church work. After dinner on their first evening in the town, however, their plans were tragically interrupted. Carl and Kay returned to their room in a primitive hotel to make coffee for the pastor who was host- page 16 Fall 2007 | Southern Seminary Magazine
STUDENT FOCUS ing them. After less than three minutes in the room, they heard screams and dishes falling. Thinking someone had fallen down, Kay looked out the door only to be greeted by a man holding an uplifted machete. After Kay closed the door, Carl threw his back against it in an attempt to keep the machete-wielding attacker out. “No sooner had I done this, the man started hitting it (the door) with great force – apparently with his shoulders,” Carl Garvin said. “The door would bulge open just enough for him to get his arm and machete through, allowing him to blindly swing at me.” That’s when gunshots began to ring out and additional shoulders began banging on the door from outside. Garvin eventually managed to wedge himself between the bed and the door, holding it closed with his feet. Yet within five minutes the door broke into three pieces and two men – one with a machete and another with a gun – stormed into the room. “The man with the machete took a hard swing at my head,” Garvin said. “I put up my left arm in defense. I felt the blow but not the pain. The wall and floor started turning red. “I said, ‘Bwana (sir), you don’t have to do this. What do you want?’ He shouted, ‘Pesa’ (money).” Kay handed the man her purse, but he kept swinging wildly with the machete. When Carl blocked a hard blow aimed at his head, the machete slipped out of his attacker’s hand and onto the floor. Kay picked it up and attempted to defend herself and her husband. But the gunman turned toward her and shot her in the chest, sending her lurching back against the wall. He then turned toward Carl and pointed the gun in his face, which was becoming increasingly soaked with blood with every passing second. “I resigned to the fact that I was going to be shot,” Carl said. Then suddenly the two attackers took the Garvins’ backpacks and other personal items and left. Crawling over to his wife, Carl examined her wound. “I am a nurse and a Vietnam veteran,” he said. “I have seen gunshot wounds before. I knew this was in a critical place. … I expected her to bleed to death within about 30 seconds. I truly expected to see my wife of 37 years turn pale and breathless in seconds.” Carl began to treat both of their wounds when their host pastor and the three American volunteers who had been with them charged into the room. Within minutes they found a man who could drive them the two hours to Moshi, where the nearest medical treatment was “…Your glory has and will shine forth through it all.” available. During the drive, God miraculously provided cell phone service in an area where a cell phone signal is typically impossible to receive, Carl said, adding that they were able to arrange for medical help to meet them in Moshi. During the trip, Kay teetered on the verge of consciousness and feared she was near death. “I started singing ‘God is so good’ and the volunteers joined me,” she said. “We continued singing two or three other hymns. This helped pass the time. Most of my prayers were short sentences like, ‘Thank you, God, for Your protection.’” After initial medical treatment in Moshi, the Garvins were airlifted to Nairobi for surgery. Doctors discovered that the bullet missed Kay’s aorta by half an inch, punctured her left lung and lodged in her back. However, within a day she was walking around. The machete blows had cut through the bone in Carl’s left arm, and blows to the door while he was holding it closed with his feet tore ligaments in his right knee. But surgery repaired both injuries. As soon as they recovered, the Garvins headed back to their position as missionaries in Tanzania. Some have asked them where God was during their experience. Carl tells such questioners that God was present all along and even guided the bullet by his providential care. “Satan wanted the victory through all this, but God stood as Jehovah Nissi,” he said. Back at their work, Carl and Kay continued a Bible study for men of the Massai people group that they had begun before the attack. Today the Bible study has grown to 30 people, and Carl baptized eight new believers recently. “Satan would have liked the Bible group to stop meeting, but it has only grown since we returned,” Carl said. A Muslim doctor who treated the Garvins in Moshi began referring to them as his “miracle couple” and told them, “You came back because God still has a work for you to do here.” For the indefinite future the Garvins plan to remain on the mission field, and Carl plans to remain a student at Southern. They say that only eternity will reveal all the victories God brought through their trial. On a piece of paper in his Bible, Carl wrote a prayer summarizing his thoughts on the attack. “Lord,” he wrote, “You do not have to show me why Kay and I were attacked. You do not have to show me why we returned. I do know you were with us and You saved our lives, and I know that Your glory has and will shine forth through it all.” Southern Seminary Magazine | Fall 2007 page 17
Page 1 and 2: FALL 2007 THE TIE VOLUME 75, NUMBER
Page 3 and 4: 2 CONTENTS 18 10 16 FEATURE 2 Forum
Page 5 and 6: The Southern Seminary Magazine rece
Page 7 and 8: Moore: “Your doctrine of the chur
Page 9 and 10: By Chuck Lawless As a non-believer
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Page 13 and 14: When we say mode of baptism, we are
Page 15 and 16: The importance of church discipline
Page 17: iblical church discipline can be im
Page 21 and 22: alone that drove him to embrace a t
Page 23 and 24: ALUMNI FOCUS Ministering the Word t
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Page 35 and 36: DEATHS T. T. Crabtree (‘49, ‘53

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