John Anderson, a Sheltering Wings board member, remembered Riddering as “a wonderful, godly man” who managed to find spare time to help teams of volunteers from other organizations who dug wells for local residents. “During the Ebola crisis, when it was hard to find people to do the digging, Mike would go out and join them so they could continue doing the work,” Anderson said. “And that’s backbreaking work. He never stopped moving and never stopped helping.”

A “well-loved and respected” American missionary was among the 29 people killed in the attack by al-Qaida fighters on a hotel and cafe in Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou.

Michael Riddering, 45, from Florida, died in the Cappuccino cafe in Friday’s attack, his mother-in-law Carol Boyle told Associated Press. He was meeting a group that was going to volunteer at the orphanage and women’s crisis center he ran with his wife, Ann Boyle-Riddering

Riddering arrived early and was in the cafe with a pastor. When the attack started they ran in different directions, Boyle said from her home in Weston, Florida.

The pastor had Riddering’s phone, and called Boyle-Riddering to say that they were at the cafe and there was gunfire, but then the line went dead. The pastor hid in the cafe and survived. It was not until a fellow Christian missionary found Riddering in the morgue on Saturday that they knew he was dead.

He leaves behind four children, two of whom were adopted from Burkina Faso.

“He was extremely well-loved and respected. He wasn’t a hypocrite, he wasn’t a two-face. He had his guiding light, and he followed it,” Boyle said.

Riddering, who once managed a yacht outfitting company in Cooper City, Florida, and his wife, a graphic designer, sold their property and possessions and moved to the town of Yako to run the Les Ailes de Refuge orphanage in 2011, Boyle said. The complex also includes a clinic, classrooms and a home for abused women and widows.

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