Published: August 9, 2010

Their devotion was perhaps most evident in what they gave up to carry out their mission: Dr. Thomas L. Grams, 51, left a thriving dental practice; Dr. Karen Woo, 36, walked away from a surgeon’s salary; Cheryl Beckett, 32, had no time for courtship or marriage.

Most of all, the 10 medical workers massacred in northern Afghanistan last week — six Americans, one German, one Briton and two Afghans — sacrificed their own safety, in a calculated gamble that weighed the risk against the distribution of eyeglasses and toothbrushes, pain relief and prenatal care to remote villages they reached on foot.

Dirk Frans, the executive director of the International Assistance Mission, which organized the trip, said he had raised safety concerns about whether it was too large a group with too many foreigners in it. But, he said, the team leader, Tom Little, with 35 years’ experience in Afghanistan, had been frustrated on previous trips because he had too few hands to treat so many, Mr. Frans said.

Even Charles Beckett, the father of one of the victims, defended his daughter’s colleagues. “These are brilliant people,” he said. “It’s not like they’re naïve and uneducated and have some fantasy about going on trips to help some people in dangerous areas.”

Aid groups vowed Monday to continue their work despite the attack, which one organization called “the worst crime targeting the humanitarian community that has ever taken place in Afghanistan.” Abed Ayoub, for instance, the chief executive officer of Islamic Relief USA, said that “currently, there are no immediate plans to decrease our work or staff size in the country.”

Still, the attacks fueled fears that the security situation in Afghanistan was weakening and that the longstanding custom of allowing safe passage to aid workers was breaking down. The Taliban and another insurgent group claimed responsibility for the attack, with the Taliban accusing the workers of spying and trying to spread Christianity.

Violence involving foreign workers rose in 2007 and 2008, then dropped off in the past year as conditions worsened, especially in rural areas, and aid groups became more cautious. In the first half of 2010, 17 aid workers, foreign and Afghan, were killed, along with 19 abducted, but attacks on nongovernmental organizations dropped 35 percent compared with the same period in 2009.

The group that was attacked was returning from a three-week mission in Nuristan that included two veteran aid workers, Mr. Little, 61, an optometrist and the group’s leader, and Dan Terry, 64, both of whom arrived in Afghanistan in the 1970s. Mr. Little and his wife, Libby, raised three daughters there.

Mr. Little had encountered Taliban fighters on many occasions at his eye camps and other rural missions, and told friends that he always carried a bottle of soothing saline solution in case fighters demanded treatment for eye problems so he could relieve their discomfort, at least temporarily.

Though many of the victims were Christians and worked for Christian organizations, friends and family of the victims denied the Taliban’s charges that they had been spies or proselytizers. “They try to be the hands and the feet of Jesus,” Mr. Beckett said, “not the mouth of Jesus.”

Several of the workers had traveled the world on aid missions. Dr. Grams had trekked to villages halfway up Mount Everest, carrying dental equipment by yak, and in Afghanistan had learned to negotiate the etiquette of the burka so he could work on the diseased teeth of women who may never have seen a dentist.

In 2007 he gave up a thriving practice in Durango, Colo., to treat patients for whom an encounter with a dentist meant a life-changing release from pain, said Laurie Mathews, founder of Global Dental Relief, the Denver-based organization for which Dr. Grams did most of his work.

Dr. Woo, a Briton, had a similarly adventurous spirit. At 16, she trained as a contemporary dancer and then worked as a wing-walker for a flying circus, performing stunts while strapped to the upper wing of a biplane, dressed in a scarlet jumpsuit.

At 22, she entered medical school and eventually volunteered for missions in South Africa, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Trinidad and Tobago. Two years ago, after visiting a friend in Kabul, she quit her $150,000-a-year job to move there. There, she kept pet tortoises and found time for a fashion show to raise money for charity. She was just weeks from her wedding.

But it was her medical work that anchored her life. Her fiancé’s mother told The Sunday Times of London that Dr. Woo resolved to do more to promote women’s rights in Afghanistan after she treated a 14-year-old girl who had been burned after refusing to marry an older man.

Testimony — …

NPR

When John Isner finally won the longest match in tennis history, he collapsed on the Wimbledon grass and then summoned one last burst of energy, springing to his feet to applaud along with the crowd.

The American hit a backhand winner to win the last of the match’s 980 points, and he took the fifth set Thursday against Nicolas Mahut, 70-68.

The first-round match took 11 hours, 5 minutes over three days, lasting so long it was suspended because of darkness – two nights in a row. Play resumed Thursday at 59-all and continued for more than an hour before Isner won 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68.

The American finished with 112 aces, and Mahut had 103, with both totals eclipsing the previous high of 78. There were only three service breaks in the match, the last coming on the final point.

Seventy Years of Captivity

¹ The word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. ² So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem: ³ For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.

⁴ And though the LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. ⁵ They said, “Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the LORD gave to you and your fathers for ever and ever. ⁶ Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.”

⁷ “But you did not listen to me,” declares the LORD, “and you have provoked me with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.”

⁸ Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, ⁹ I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the LORD, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy ^[a] them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. ¹⁰ I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. ¹¹ This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

¹² “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, ^[b] for their guilt,” declares the LORD, “and will make it desolate forever. ¹³ I will bring upon that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations. ¹⁴ They themselves will be enslaved by many nations and great kings; I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”

The Cup of God’s Wrath

¹⁵ This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. ¹⁶ When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.”

¹⁷ So I took the cup from the LORD’s hand and made all the nations to whom he sent me drink it: ¹⁸ Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials, to make them a ruin and an object of horror and scorn and cursing, as they are today; ¹⁹ Pharaoh king of Egypt, his attendants, his officials and all his people, ²⁰ and all the foreign people there; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (those of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the people left at Ashdod ²¹ Edom, Moab and Ammon; ²² all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea; ²³ Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who are in distant places ^[c] ; ²⁴ all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who live in the desert; ²⁵ all the kings of Zimri, Elam and Media; ²⁶ and all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach ^[d] will drink it too.

²⁷ “Then tell them, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword I will send among you.’ ²⁸ But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, tell them, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: You must drink it! ²⁹ See, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the LORD Almighty.’

³⁰ “Now prophesy all these words against them and say to them:
” ‘The LORD will roar from on high;
he will thunder from his holy dwelling
and roar mightily against his land.
He will shout like those who tread the grapes,
shout against all who live on the earth.

³¹ The tumult will resound to the ends of the earth,
for the LORD will bring charges against the nations;
he will bring judgment on all mankind
and put the wicked to the sword,’ ”
declares the LORD.

³² This is what the LORD Almighty says:
“Look! Disaster is spreading
from nation to nation;
a mighty storm is rising
from the ends of the earth.”

³³ At that time those slain by the LORD will be everywhere—from one end of the earth to the other. They will not be mourned or gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground.

³⁴ Weep and wail, you shepherds;
roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock.
For your time to be slaughtered has come;
you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery.

³⁵ The shepherds will have nowhere to flee,
the leaders of the flock no place to escape.

³⁶ Hear the cry of the shepherds,
the wailing of the leaders of the flock,
for the LORD is destroying their pasture.

³⁷ The peaceful meadows will be laid waste
because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

³⁸ Like a lion he will leave his lair,
and their land will become desolate
because of the sword ^[e] of the oppressor
and because of the LORD’s fierce anger.