Michiana Christian Embassy in Nile, Mich. | Google Maps A Michigan widow, whose Christian husband recently died from COVID-19, is defending her embattled pastor over his comments that he died from the virus because he had no faith. The widow, Ruthann Tom, told ABC57 that she thinks the comments her pastor, the Rev. Jeffrey Whittaker of Michiana Christian Embassy in Nile, made about her late husband, Les Tom, were “taken out of context.” “I listened to the sermon and it was taken out of context, it was uplifting and encouraging and nothing bad was said about my husband,” Tom said. Her husband died in November after both of them contracted COVID-19.