President Obama today awarded the United States’ highest civilian honor to Dr. Tom Little, a Christian worker for the International Assistance Mission (IAM) who was murdered in Afghanistan last August.
“Tom Little could have pursued a lucrative career,” President Obama said during the ceremony for Little and 14 other recipients. “Instead, he was guided by his faith, and he set out to heal the poorest of the poor in Afghanistan. For 30 years, amid invasion and civil war, the terror of the Taliban, the spread of insurgency, he and his wife Libby helped bring Afghans””literally””the miracle of sight.”
Wow. Praise God! I’m so glad Tom Little’s memory and ministry has been honored in this way.
I had the amazing privilege of hearing Tom’s wife Libby speak at the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town South Africa in October. It was far and away the most powerful memory of an amazingly powerful week.
One of the things she spoke about was what it means to be the fragrance of Christ. May many more be willing to go and be the light and fragrance of Christ in the forsaken, difficult and war-torn places of this world.
To get an idea of what that might look like or mean, I highly recommend Libby Little’s article for CT, written a few weeks before her husband’s murder. It explains why she and her family chose to stay in such a difficult place of service. Must reading!
Here’s that link:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/globalconversation/august2010/response2.html?start=1