Darlene Cunningham: “We have not seen a tragedy of this magnitude in all of [our] history … their deaths create a massive vacuum” for Youth With a Mission.
Days after a bus accident claimed 11 of its missionaries in Tanzania, leaders of Youth With a Mission (YWAM) are “devastated” but rallying for support to aid logistical arrangements, including medical evacuations, repatriations, and funeral arrangements.
The Christian missionaries, seven of whom were from other countries, including one from the United States, died in the Ngaramtoni area near the city of Arusha in the eastern African country’s north.
Authorities say a construction truck hit one of two mini-school buses carrying the missionaries. The participants in an “Executive Masters in Leadership” course were returning from a field trip in Maasai land when the truck lost its brakes, smashing into the bus.
YWAM cofounder Darlene Cunningham explained the devastation in a letter dated Feb. 26:
The individuals involved in running the Executive Masters were key YWAM leaders in the region – some leading flourishing YWAM bases; others giving leadership in the field of education and other spheres; others ministering in restricted-access locations where no one else would dare to go – and seeing the hand of God upon their ministries in amazing ways. The students attracted to the Executive Masters were the same caliber of people – life-long committed YWAM missionary pioneers. So their deaths create a massive vacuum in this part of the world for YWAM as a missionary movement.
On Wednesday (Feb. 28), members of YWAM in the region held prayers and send-off services for their departed colleagues.
“The mood is very sad,” Bernard Ojiwa, an official of YWAM in Tanzania, told Religion News Service in a phone call from Arusha. “We started the journey for burials of the local members.” …