PUERTO PLATA, Dominican Republic (BNc) — A young preacher was hacked to death for baptizing a young woman, missionary Joseph Worndle wrote yesterday.

Jonas was one of his best students at the preaching school.

“Jonas was teaching a group of people in his village outside of Puerto Plata. Soon one young lady was ready to be baptized. The whole group witnessed the baptism and Jonas was so happy about the conversion. He told everyone about it. However, the husband did not approve of his wife leaving her denomination and thus he attacked Jonas with a machete, hacking him (literally) to pieces,” Joseph wrote.

“The murderer has been arrested. We all will miss Jonas. He always had such great questions in class, and he often told us how the Bible clearly contradicts his former religion. Jonas was very disturbed by the fact that there are over 34,000 different denominations and he often told people to Google-search it and check it out for themselves,” he said.

“Obviously, I was so disturbed about it I could not get myself to speak much about it. The facts are now in and I am willing to tell how it is often not without peril to teach the truth,” Joseph wrote.

The murder occurred last week, but only now has Joseph been able to talk about it.

The elders of the Stiversville, Tenn., congregation, a long-time supporter of Joseph, asked by email, “How does this make us feel? Scared and ready to give up and pull out of the mission field, or does it make us determined to preach more, pray more and yes, even give more, so those brave souls such as Joseph Worndle and the late Jonas and many others will know we care and support them?”

Joseph’s overseeing congregation is the West Broward church in Plantation, Fla.

Joe would welcome emails, Stiversville elder Larry Benderman said to BNc.

“Joseph has been one of our most dedicated missionaries we have supported from the Stiversville church. We have supported him from the very beginning of his work, well over 20 years ago. He is a graduate of the Sunset School of Preaching and has all but given his life’s blood to his efforts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic,” Larry wrote.

Randal and his wife Vicki have lived and worked in Brazil since Nov. 1984. They have three married children and five grandchildren. He enjoys his new home office. http://randal.us forthrightpress.com

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