When the Viet Cong detonated a car bomb outside the US embassy in Saigon in 1965, a woman named Rachel Kerr James was the first medical professional to arrive on the scene.
“I am going to stay here as long as necessary,” she said to her husband, Sam. “It could be a long time.”
A nurse, mother of four, and wife of a Southern Baptist church planter, James had arranged her life around being a foreign missionary. Her response to the bombing was just one example of James’ commitment to her calling. She spent three days caring for the wounded at the embassy. She spent 13 years caring for the Vietnamese during the war.
In 1973, as American troops were beginning to withdraw and most medical personnel in Saigon was sent home, James purchased medical equipment from the army and established a mobile clinic with a Catholic doctor. When Northern Vietnamese soldiers threatened her work, James refused to give up.
“Sam,” she told her husband, “I just can’t give up the ministry God has placed in my care. The need is just too great. … I simply will not, cannot quit.”
James passed away in April of this year. Her life tells a story of confidence in God’s faithfulness to equip his children. May we live with similar courage, sure of the one who has set out good works in advance for us to do (Eph. 2:10).
