Published by: AMH Archives Team
Published Date: 9/25/2022
𝗗𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗱 was closing the gate to the driveway at his home, when he was suddenly shot, and killed by an unknown assailant.
It was 13 September 1967, and the mission workers were shaken at the doctor's abrupt and horrific murder, in Muscat, Oman.
Dr Maurice had gone there, after working in Bahrain’s American Mission Hospital, in 1958, and during 1960-62. He had been working for over 5 years in Muttrah, Muscat before meeting this tragic end.
The doctors, nurses and other medical workers in the American Mission Hospitals of Kuwait, Bahrain and Muscat were all shocked, sad and puzzled.
Lewis Scudder III, who had worked in Bahrain, wrote:
It was widely suspected that the assailant had been a disgruntled patient with high social status who had been forced to wait his turn like everyone else at morning clinic.
This had been a discipline which Heusinkveld doggedly enforced in the teeth of all advice to be more flexible . But it emerged years after the event that, in fact, the allailant had been a hired hand."
Some say that a high born individual had become outraged when Maurie insisted that he leave the consultation room while he examined the patient, the man's wife. But, with many years of Arabic language skills, and with knowledge of the Arab customs, many others say that Dr Maurice knew how to talk to patients and their attendees. We'll probably never know the full story.
His wife Elinor returned to Holland, Michigan in the USA, after that. And she died on 17 November 2016.
One of their sons, Paul Heusinkveld, has written a children’s book, Elephant Baseball: A Missionary Kid's Tale. It has many anecdotes from his life, and other missionaries’ children’s lives, as they grew up in India and Arabia. And it includes the story of his father’s assassination as well.
The late Dr Maurice Heusinkveld’s picture is among the hospital leaders’ photographs, placed in the Manama hospital corridor near the ENT department.
Source : 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯'𝘴 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺: 𝘐𝘯 𝘚𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘩𝘢𝘮'𝘴 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘰𝘯 by Lewis R Scudder III, 1998, Faith Alive Christian Resources, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.