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Two Canadian missionaries are about to become Kenya's poster couple for an amazing study in applied Christianity. Today, John and Eloise Bergen will begin testifying at the Kenyan trial of nine men accused of attacking them in July in an assault that left John, 70, severely beaten and Eloise, 66, gang-raped.

Last week, as the Bergens flew into Nairobi, the danger of the mission this couple faces was fresh and raw. They were greeted by colleague Ryan Schumacher, a 28-year-old streetwise missionary whose garbage-recycling plant creates jobs. His agricultural innovations were part of the Bergens' work and, together with their agency, Hope for the Nations, the trio provides homes and schools to orphans in eight Kenyan locations.

It was midnight by the time Mr. Schumacher closed the iron gate on the guarded guest house playing host to the Bergens. He took a few steps to his lodgings - and was mugged. Armed men stole Mr. Schumacher's laptop, money and two iPhones.

It shouldn't be so hard to do the right thing in Kenya. But as the trial gets under way on this beaten band of missionaries, John and Eloise Bergen are laughing. John has been going to the gym twice a day to rebuild his legs and arms shattered by machetes, but they say "the joy of the Lord has been their strength."

Theirs is the kind of hallelujah-shouting sermon that is hard to argue against. They left Canada with a sendoff from a packed church, and a determination that they were going to export forgiveness to their attackers and the country at large.

Kenyan prosecutors are trying the nine men on counts of robbery with violence; the maximum penalty is life. Expect John and Eloise to testify, and then lean forward and tell the accused: "Jesus can forgive you."

The B.C. couple had first arrived in Kenya last March with the goal of providing for street children. The thanks they received was the assault that nearly killed them. But as they retreated back to Canada to heal, and conducted a fundraising campaign in 30 churches for their return, they kept gathering momentum to tell their attackers that they forgave them.

"We learned how to forgive much earlier," John said at one church. And then he listed the real wounds he felt had knocked him down early in life, the common stuff everyone gets from people you counted on to respect you. Eloise said forgiving people you love and care for was harder then forgiving strangers who rape you, but she's letting it all go.

A Kenyan pastor visited her with a delegation on forgiveness as she lay in hospital. She recounts the verbal process of citing each assault and the attacker's face, and saying: "I forgive you."

When I first met them a few short weeks after the attack, I thought it was trauma speaking. But now, seven months later, their forgiveness is still real. With the power of their story, they've raised $50,000 by doing the Sunday morning circuit.

When they finish testifying this week, they'll stay in Kenya long enough to buy two more parcels of land and launch plans to build two new schools and orphanages. They hope to expand this Canadian base to tractor-based farming to feed the kids.

They'll be back in Calgary by March for more surgery to repair wounds, but their plans are to resettle in their rural Kitale home by July. Meantime, they have eight beautiful grandchildren and close relationships with four loving children. We'd all understand if they just stayed home and enjoyed those riches.

But this is what happens when the paradigm of Christ is applied to how people live. It gets messy, it gets beautiful, and it often doesn't make any sense to our own logic.

Lorna Dueck is executive producer of Listen Up TV.