Gayle Williams

Responding to the murder of Gayle Williams, there were some calls by atheists for Christians to end evangelism. However, a worldwide commission of evangelical Christian theologians, meeting in Bangkok on 23–25 October, reaffirmed the importance of holistic mission.

She was well aware of the risks of working in Afghanistan. Some 4,000 people had been killed there in 2008, of whom one third were civilians. Taliban violence had been targeted against aid workers to spread fear and undermine the Government's claims to be bringing security. In April 2008, because of the danger to charity workers there, Serve recalled its staff from Kandahar to Kabul.

A "prayer walk" for Williams' family and colleagues was arranged for 8 November 2008 in London, stopping to pray outside embassies of countries where Christian believers face persecution.

Williams had been fascinated with Afghanistan, and worked with Afghan refugees in camps in Pakistan, starting to learn Dari and Pashto. She was determined to work in-country and was stationed in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar in 2006, working with disabled children, blind and deaf children, and children hurt and maimed by landmines and fighting in the country.

Gayle Williams (18 December 1973 – 20 October 2008) was an aid worker for SERVE Afghanistan of joint British and South African nationality. She was shot on her way to work in Kabul, Afghanistan by two men on a motorbike. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility for her death and said she had been killed "because she was working for an organization which was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan".