First missionary killed in Angola

By means of Leonardo BlairSenior reporter Tuesday October 29, 2024

Beau Shroyer, a pastor and former police officer of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, who with his wife Jackie and five children began working as missionaries in Lubango, Angola, for SIM-USAwas “murdered while serving Jesus” last Friday, months after his family raised concerns at a local church about ongoing security concerns they faced during the mission. He was 44.

“On Friday, October 25, I received a call informing me that Beau Shroyer was murdered while serving Jesus in Angola and is now with his Savior,” said Randy Fairman, President of SIM USA, said in a statement Released on Saturday after the death of the former pastor.

SIM USA is part of a long-standing global mission organization that focuses on doing mission work in places where it is difficult to share the Gospel.

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The organization did not immediately have additional updates on Shroyer’s killing when contacted by The Christian Post on Tuesday, but said in their statement on Saturday that Fairman was headed to Lubango, Angola’s second-largest city by population.

“Beau and Jackie Shroyer, along with their five children, were some of the first missionaries to begin working at SIM USA after COVID lockdowns were eased. They have brought a faithful, energetic, growing, loving fragrance of Christ into our family,” Fairman said in his statement.

He continued, “From our perspective and the perspective of Jackie and the children, we must now trust Jesus in a season we could never have imagined. We must trust Him without requiring Him to understand why He allowed this. It is difficult and increases our faith. I have not spoken to Jackie yet and many details are still unknown.”

Troy Easton, lead pastor of Lake District Vineyard Church where Beau Shroyer and his family are longtime members who last visited just three months ago, said that while the circumstances surrounding the missionary’s death remain complicated, he confirmed that he “was killed by an act of violence.”

“Yesterday, Friday, October 25, we were notified by Mark Bosscher, SIM-USA’s Chief Personnel Officer & General Counsel, that our dear brother and friend Beau Shroyer was killed in an act of violence while serving Jesus in Angola, Africa . ” Him congregants said Saturday.

He said the church had been in contact with the pastor’s wife and that she and the children were safe and being cared for.

In a presentation about their missionary work in Lubango National faith church in June, Jackie Shroyer revealed that she and her family moved to Angola about three years ago. It was their first time living abroad as a family and their first time working as missionaries.

She explained that in their first year in the city, they focused on learning Portuguese and the culture, and continually faced malaria and security issues.

“We have battled many other diseases. We had a lot of security problems. Distrust of guards. We’ve had so many security guards break into our house multiple times at night while we were sleeping at home,” Jackie Shroyer said.

“In addition, as we were trying to figure out how to live in this culture, we had so many changes, so many difficult experiences that caused a lot of fear and trauma,” she added.

Jackie Shroyer said they sometimes wondered what they were doing in Lubango, but they held on to their faith and continued to serve their first term as missionaries.

“It’s really encouraging that now that we’re here, we’ve completed that first semester. We went to our organization’s headquarters and did our debriefing and all seven of us can say with certainty that we can’t wait to get back and continue working,” she said. “There is no doubt in our minds that this is where we need to be and we are so excited to return and continue our work.”

Beau Shroyer would later explain during the presentation that the government of Angola had given the ministry a plot of land next to an orange farm that was under constant attack by criminals who encroached on the properties they were trying to develop.

At the top of the list of needs for the property he presented to Country Faith Church was the need to build a perimeter wall and hire more security.

The late pastor said the orange farm next to the youth ministry compound had installed an electrified, 10-foot-high barbed wire fence and hired about 50 security guards to protect the farm day and night, but they were still struggling with crime in an area where hunger is rampant . considered a major problem.

“These guys watch out here day and night against thieves who come to steal the oranges to sell,” says Beau Shroyer. “It’s actually so bad that they’re shooting people, and about a week before we came to the US, … one of the thieves was shot dead in a machete fight. So it’s desperation, like Jackie said. They are so hungry that they risk their lives to get a pile of oranges.”

The most recent travel advice about Angola Issued by the US State Department in September, just a month after the Shroyer family returned to Angola, the southern African nation is placed at Level 2.

“Violent crimes, such as armed robbery, assault, carjacking and murder, are common,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns. “Local police do not have the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.”