A person works a lifetime in hopes of one day giving back. That is the legacy of Christian missionaries Scott Adam and his wife, Jean, of Marina Del Rey, California, as well as Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle of Seattle. All four were dedicated to bringing the Gospel to people in faraway lands.
“Since 2004, the Adams lived on their yacht in Marina Del Rey for about half the year and the rest of the year they sailed around the world, often distributing Bibles in remote parts of the Fiji Islands, Alaska, New Zealand, Central America and French Polynesia.”
Scott Adam worked as an associate producer in Hollywood. After becoming a Christian, he enrolled in Fuller Theological Seminary. According to Scott’s friend, Robert K. Johnson, the retiree decided to take his “pension, and… serve God and humankind.”
On the Adams’ S/V Quest Adventure Log the couple recorded that “Their latest voyage would take them from India to the Mediterranean by way of the Arabian and Red Seas. They had hoped to reach the island of Crete by April, and then sail to Istanbul.” Last year, the duo traveled to Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand. Their log notes that “Djibouti is a big refueling stop [we] have no idea what will happen in these ports, but perhaps we’ll do some local touring.”
It didn’t happen. Even though the Adams were always cautious, pirates hijacked the Quest. The general consensus was that the bandits were “unlikely to hurt the four Americans because they [wouldn’t] win any ransom money if they [did].” Unfortunately, the optimism was misguided, because in the past “African missionaries who have been caught working in the area have paid with their lives.”
Another hope was that the hostage takers were not “hard-line Islamists but economic opportunists who tend to spend their ransoms on alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes.” Many experts “speculate[d] that the couples’ cargo of Bibles [would] not present an ideological conflict with their captors, who are merely looking for a quick payoff.”
Again those who hypothesized were wrong, because for the Adams and their friends, what happened as the “pirates sailed the yacht toward the Somali coast” did not include “local touring.”
The four nautical missionaries never got to shop for trinkets and straw hats, village children did not happily gather round the yacht for lollipops and Bibles. Instead, for 96 terrifying hours the group was held hostage, shadowed by a U.S. warship hoping to save their lives.
The Navy’s effort failed. “The four Americans aboard a yacht hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia are dead.” In a matter of minutes, selfless missionaries were turned into sacrificial lambs by Somali pirates who it is believed belonged to al-Shabab, a radical group known to target those not representing Allah.
The end result of charitable concern for a lost and dying world was martyrdom at the hands of subhuman radicals who slaughtered the four in cold blood.
Hopefully Scott, Jean, Phyllis and Bob were comforted by the promises of Revelation 2:10 that say: “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
In the meantime, civilized people the world over should take heed. There is a global brutalization taking place against both Christians and Jews by barbaric Allahu Akbar-chanting radicals attempting to prove the supremacy of their god through the merciless shedding of innocent blood.
