March 15, 2004. What started out as a day full of meaning and purpose, discovering how to meet the needs of a community in northern Iraq, turned into a surreal nightmare, the scars of which Carrie McDonnall will bear for the rest of her life.
Carrie and her husband of two years, David, were humanitarian aid workers doing an assessment at an Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp on that spring day. With them for the day were visiting veteran aid workers Larry and Jean Elliot and Karen Watson, one of the first missionaries into Iraq.
The visit at the camp went well, but as the afternoon wore on, the team grew anxious about arriving at their destination for the evening (a protected Kurdish zone) before nightfall. Driving in Iraq in the dark was not safe, especially for Caucasians.
Hoping to save time, they chose the most direct route, which was to go straight through the city of Mosul instead of around it. It was a calculated risk, since Mosul was home to a disproportionate number of insurgents and angry Islamic extremists.
It was still light as they approached town, but Carrie’s heart raced at the scene ahead of them: traffic. Once downtown, the traffic became gridlock, and the truck with five white Americans became a sitting duck.
And then Carrie felt something sting the top of her ear. Clutching it, she blacked out, coming to again only when she heard David’s booming voice: “Everybody get down!” But sitting in the backseat between the two other women, there was nowhere to hide. The deafening staccato of automatic rifles filled the air.
Everything happened so fast it was impossible to make sense of it all. One thing Carrie knew: they were under attack, and they were defenseless.
Lord, help me turn to you instead of to my own resources when I am under attack.
“O LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me.” (Psalm 7:1)