August 3, 2004
As a key witness in the trial of eight Al Qaeda-linked guerillas, American missionary Gracia Burnham has been recounting the year-long ordeal in which she and her husband were held captive by terrorists.
In May of 2001, Gracia and Martin Burnham, who were serving with Florida-based New Tribes Missions, were celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary in the Philippines where they had been working as missionaries, when something happened that would change the course of their lives forever.
The couple was abducted by Muslim terrorists with the Abu Sayyaf group. They were held, along with other hostages, for several months, until an Army raid in June of 2002. That rescue operation, in which Martin Burnham was killed, left his wife with a gunshot wound to her thigh and traumatic memories of their long captivity.
Gracia Burnham returned to Manila to testify as Philippine government officials sought to impose justice on the alleged Muslim rebels accused of holding her and her husband hostage. According to Associated Press reports, Burnham recognized six of the eight suspects, and she recalled on the stand how her captors had referred to themselves as "the Osama bin Laden group" and celebrated after the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Also, during her testimony against her alleged captors, Burnham pointed to a rusty dog chain and identified it as what the terrorists had used to shackle her husband during their year of captivity in the jungle. She wept twice as she bore witness, including during her description of her husband's death.
Burnham, who wrote about her ordeal in the book In the Presence of My Enemies (Tyndale, 2003), says she has forgiven her captors and encourages Christians to pray for all those misled by Islam.
She speculates that perhaps many Muslims have not observed much love from Christianity down through the ages, and says, "I wonder if that could start with some of us now as we begin to pray and love and forgive. And I think, probably, the thing we need to pray about is that those guys will get to hear the gospel of Jesus in their own tongue."
The missionary-turned-author says that is going to require that some Christians commit themselves to taking the gospel, in Arabic, into the heart of Islam, "which is going to mean there are some martyrs-- and that might even be some of our own children."
Burnham now lives in Kansas with her three children. She says God's grace was evident throughout her ordeal, and she has felt it ever since -- "you know, just the grace God's going to give me to live the rest of my life, expecting God's best. Burnham says even though "Heaven's always on my mind," she remains confident that the best has not come and gone in her life, but that God has many new blessings in store for her and her family.
© 2004 Agape Press.
