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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