I get the BMS e-mail update regularly and, if I'm honest, tend to skim through it and move on to the next email fairly quickly.

Not so this morning.  As I scrolled through I read of a 24 year-old BMS worked who had died in Afghanistan.  The name rang a bell and as I clicked the link to the BMS website the picture confirmed my worst fears.  After a bit more web searching to check I wasn't wrong, I am now 99.9% sure I met this young woman, as she came to my little church in Dibley in June 2004 as part of a BMS Action team on tour.  She was due to go to university to study Environmental Sciences that autumn.  In her I detected clear evidence of a prophetic ministry (not someone who sees the future, someone who sees as God sees and speaks God's truth into a disordered world) and encouraged her to test out her call. I well recall her saying how she had reflected on the disparity between the wealth she took for granted as British citizen and the extreme poverty of people in Uganda.  Why has God given us so much, she pondered, and them so little?  She knew why it wasn't.  Not, she concluded, for us to enjoy a life of decadence but that somehow - she wasn't clear how - so that we could employ that wealth in the service of others.  She was not excusing poverty, she knew that was wrong too.  And she knew that simple answers were wrong answer: she showed wisdom beyond her experience.

And now she is dead.  And a million thoughts run through my head.

What I do know is that Fay was a beautiful, honest and faithful girl who loved her Lord and was willing to take the risks of faithful discipleship, physically, emotionally and even spiritually.  Somewhere in one of my boxes I believe I still have the hand-made thank you card she sent me after her visit, and certainly when packing up to move north found a crumpled photo of the four young people in Ugandan dress who came and shared a week with us, a week that was so incredibly significant in the life of that little church, coinciding with the Insurance Inspection that led to the building being closed.

I pray for Fay's family at this time, that they will find the comfort and consolation they need.  And I thank God for the privilege of meeting her, if only for a short time, praying that she is at peace and safe with her Lord.