{"id":41295,"date":"2015-06-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/secular-columnist-praises-work-of-missionary\/"},"modified":"2015-06-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T00:00:00","slug":"secular-columnist-praises-work-of-missionary","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/secular-columnist-praises-work-of-missionary\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Secular&#8217; Columnist Praises Work of Missionary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nicholas Kristof, an op-ed columnist for <em class=\"citation\">The New York Times<\/em> wrote a column entitled, &quot;A Little Respect for Dr. Foster.&quot; Kristof makes clear that he isn&#39;t an evangelical Christian yet he says, &quot;But I&#39;ve been truly awed by those I&#39;ve seen in so many remote places, combating illiteracy and warlords, famine and disease, humbly struggling to do the Lord&#39;s work as they see it &hellip; &quot; He focuses on &quot;Dr. Stephen Foster, 65, a white-haired missionary surgeon who has lived in Angola for 37 years&mdash;much of that in a period when the Angolan regime was Marxist and hostile to Christians.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>&quot;We were granted visas,&quot; [Foster] said, &quot;by the very people who would tell us publicly, &#39;your churches are going to disappear in 20 years,&#39; but privately, &#39;you are the only ones we know willing to serve in the midst of the fire.&#39;&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Kristof writes, &quot;One son contracted polio; a daughter survived cerebral malaria; and the family nearly starved when the area was besieged during war and Dr. Foster insisted on sharing the family rations with 100 famished villagers.&quot;<\/p>\n\n<p>Kristof concludes: &quot;The next time you hear someone at a cocktail party mock evangelicals, think of Dr. Foster and those like him. These are folks who don&#39;t so much proclaim the gospel as live it. They deserve better.&quot; (Although there&#39;s probably much more proclaiming than Kristof realizes. Dr. Foster&#39;s website carries the banner: Hope for Angola through healthcare, agriculture, education, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.)<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[405,411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3559,3599,3640,3645,3701,3897,4060,4073,4096,4154,4476,4480],"tax_ctp_topics":[388],"class_list":["post-41295","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-character","tax_ctp_tags-christlikeness","tax_ctp_tags-commitment","tax_ctp_tags-community-impact","tax_ctp_tags-courage","tax_ctp_tags-evangelism","tax_ctp_tags-global-missions","tax_ctp_tags-godliness","tax_ctp_tags-great-commission","tax_ctp_tags-holiness","tax_ctp_tags-mission","tax_ctp_tags-missionary"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Secular&#039; 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