Back in September I interviewed David Sitton, the President of To Every Tribe Ministries, a frontier missions organization which has been planting churches among unreached people groups of Papua New Guinea and Mexico. David was getting ready to run a Conference entitled The Privilege of Suffering: Jesus is Worth It.
This past Thanksgiving the Lord saw fit to bring David a tremendous dose of suffering: his six-year-old niece, Makayla Sitton, was among four people inexplicably murdered by Paul Michael Merhige, a 35-year old man who also fatally shot his twin sisters Carla and Lisa Merhige, 33, and his aunt Raymonde Joseph, 76. It is unclear as to what immediately precipitated the killings. Merhige was a cousin of Sitton. Her parents, Jim and Muriel Sitton, were strong Christians involved at Calvary Chapel Palm City, were Larry Sarver serves as senior pastor. Regarding Makayla, Sarver said:
“She was not your typical 6-year-old. You always hear in a tragedy like this how special the person is, but in her case it’s not hyperbole. I’ve been in ministry 18 years and never met somebody this young who was this spiritually mature. Never.”
Here’s a short video in which Jim Sitton gives us a great example of grieving with hope:
Here’s a quote from a TC Palm report:
David Sitton of Texas, Jim Sitton’s brother, told the crowd that “Makayla has taken her place among the martyrs for Christ. On Thanksgiving night, God did not abandon Makayla or our family. The very last eyes she saw were the eyes of her earthly father as he put her to bed, and when she woke up, she looked into the eyes of Jesus. As a family, we choose to say, ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord.’”
May God’s fame be spread by her death.
Unfortunately, the killer Paul Merhige remains at large, and is considered to be armed and dangerous, according to the U.S. Marshals.
Numerous reports have been written about Makayla’s legacy, including one from TC Palm and The Palm Beach Post.
UPDATE: The killer was apprehended in Florida on January 2, 2010.