Reginald Killingsley sent me the following today–this is from the Pastor General’s Report dated August 22, 1985 (“From Ministerial Services”):
This past Thursday, August 22, Mr. Leon Walker came to my office to report that he had just learned that one of our ministers in South America had been shot. Mr. Reginald Killingley, pastor of the Lima and Huaraz, Peru congregations, had been robbed and shot about 30 minutes earlier. Mr. Killingley had just withdrawn money for a second tithe subsidy from a Lima bank and was on his way home when the robbery occurred. Mr. Walker and I decided that he should travel to Peru as soon as possible to be with Mr. Killingley. After his arrival in Lima, Mr. Walker related more details of the robbery and Mr. Killingley’s condition.
Not realizing he had been shot (he saw neither blood nor a bullet hole in his sweater), Mr. Killingley ran to a nearby maternity hospital to call the police. It was there that he noticed he was having difficulty breathing, and was taken to the emergency room.
He was then transferred to the Anglo-American Hospital in Lima, where doctors inserted a tube in his thorax to help drain fluids from his lung. The bullet had deflected off one of his ribs, punctured his right lung and lodged in his right armpit. On August 27 the tube and the bullet were removed. Mr. Killingley is expected to recover completely, and to be released from the hospital in early September.
We are all very thankful to God for His intervention and mercy in what could have been a tragedy. Once again, this points up the need to be diligently praying for God’s protection for one another. Many of our fellow ministers live and work in extremely dangerous areas and situations all around the world. Of course, there is no place on earth that can be considered really safe. God’s people, especially His ministers, are targets for Satan the devil wherever they may live. Let’s thank God for the protection He has given Mr. Killingley, and continue to earnestly pray for God’s safekeeping and preservation of His ministers as they go about doing the work He has given them.
After I told him I planned to post it, he sent the following:
I believe I was protected. The doc who treated me told me that if one had to be shot (not that anyone “has” to be shot!), I was shot the best way possible (from a survival standpoint!). Never lost much blood. Nothing vital hit. Bullet removed with local anesthesia from just under the armpit. Shoulda kept it! (A year earlier, Reagan was shot with a similar caliber bullet. The bullet ricocheted off his limousine, struck under his left armpit, grazed a rib, punctured his lung, and lodged just an inch from his heart. He could have died.)
Reginald Killingsley often sends me emails.
The Pastor General Report one is the first one he sent me about himself in this type of way.
Thought some with a WCG background might find it of interest.