June 27. Ken Jacobs. Ken served his country, faced unspeakable horror, and set his own needs aside for the good of the country. On this date in 2019, Ken told what happened on D-Day—when he had a job to do.
“You are expendable.” Survive that lie and live!
US Army Private First Class Ken Jacobs tried peering out of the tall sides of the boat. All he could see were more boats like the one he was in with his best friend Danny and scores of other soldiers. He couldn’t see the stretch of beach in Normandy, but he knew they had to be just minutes away from the French coastline.
Gunfire and explosions crackled around them, but in his ears his pounding heart almost deafened him.
Suddenly, Commanding Officer Wright appeared on the deck.
The Captain grabbed a soldier by his uniform, jerked him close, and shouted into his face, “You are expendable!” He released the soldier, and the guys staggered backward.
The Captain spun and faced the tight group in the boat. “You are ALL expendable! That beach is our mission! You will go there, and there will be more soldiers following you, and there will be more soldiers following them! Take the beach! Follow the mission!”
The boat landed. Ken turned to his friend, “See you on the beach!”
Explosions all around him, Ken focused on moving forward, half-ran, half-stumbled across the beach. All around him, soldiers dropped, and Ken had to hop over them or maneuver around them, still heading forward. Danny ran just up ahead.
But that instant, a hidden mine exploded, and Danny flew backward. When he landed, this man who had been his friend was now unrecognizable.
Ken froze, his horror almost overwhelmed him, but he remembered the mission, put his head down, and pushed farther up the beach.
Ken survived D-Day, the Normandy Invasion, a great victory for the Allied forces in World War II.
Eventually, Ken went home and married a pretty nurse. But—in his head—he kept hearing the words of his captain. He was expendable! Why hadn’t he died with Danny and the other brave men? Did God have another mission for him?
Ken began to ask God, “What do you want me to do? Show me where to go.” And God did.
God led him to prepare for Bible-translation work at a Bible college in Minnesota, his home state.
After finishing college, Wycliffe Bible Translators approached Ken and his wife Elaine with a challenge. Would they go to “The Impossible People?”
Missionaries had gone before them and tried to bring the gospel to this threatening, closed people group in the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico. The Chamulan people were not above killing outsiders and anyone else who threatened their belief system of witchcraft and superstition.
Ken and his wife did go and live with the Chamulan people for fifty years. They adopted a young Chamulan boy as their own son. Many who believed in the good news the Jacobs’ brought were killed or imprisoned, or their homes were burned. Still, the gospel spread, and the Chamulan church grew.
Some visitors once came to hear Ken’s story of how a WWII veteran came to spend his life in a Mexican jungle. In the middle of the story, Ken grabbed a visitor by his lapels and shouted in his face, “Christ was expendable! He was expendable for you! YOU were His mission!”
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20 NASB).
What kind of mission has God assigned you? You are not expendable; believe that truth and live.
Based on an interview with Joy Tuggy, June 27, 2019.
Dierberger, Sharon. “D-Day plus 75 Years: God saves a soldier to save others an ocean away.” World Magazine. Published June 8, 2019. https://world.wng.org/2019/05/d_day_plus_75_years#.XRVWvBqr2mY.mailto.