The Ebola threat can't keep Tom and Becky Brockelman, a Baptist missionary couple from Texas, from returning to West Africa.

That was the theme of a fascinating Dallas Morning News feature over the weekend:

For months, Ebola had been a faraway worry, a concern but not a threat to the Brockelman family.

Then, one by one, relief workers started to leave Sierra Leone. Medical workers. Support staff. Other missionaries.

When Ebola finally landed near their home in a rural part of the Freetown peninsula, the Brockelmans decided it was time to return to Texas.

“We love Sierra Leone. It is our home,” Becky Brockelman said recently at her mother-in-law’s house in Sherman. “But as this thing began to spread, the rumors began to flare.”

The deadly Ebola virus was erupting throughout West Africa, with Sierra Leone and neighboring Liberia and Guinea the hardest hit. The disease was virtually uncontrolled and thousands of people were dying across the region. The meager medical centers were overwhelmed by the disease, and the Brockelmans realized they would have few options if they became ill.

The couple, Baptist missionaries, came back to Texas in early August with the Sierra Leonean boy they are adopting. They isolated themselves for 21 days, to ensure they had not contracted the deadly disease, and tried to wait out the epidemic.

But their hearts won out. Not even Ebola can keep them from their life’s work in West Africa.

But why?

Why do they feel such a strong calling to return to Sierra Leone? That was my question as I kept reading.