Missionary Survivor of Hostage Ordeal Says God's Ongoing Grace Is Evident
by Allie Martin
May 6, 2004
(AgapePress) - A U.S. missionary who was held captive with her husband for more than a year in the Philippines is praying for and funding efforts to convert their Muslim kidnappers.On June 7, 2002, Philippine troops freed missionary Gracia Burnham after 377 days in captivity as hostages of a radical Philippine terrorist group. Her husband Martin was killed during a shootout between their captors and the rescuers.
Burnham and her three children now live in Kansas in a home built for them by donors and supporters. She says additional gifts are distributed through the Martin & Gracia Burnham Foundation to fund missionary work.
"We're just funneling money to tribal evangelism and missionary aviation and to the persecuted Church and Muslim [outreach] ministries," she says, "and it has been so fun for my kids and I just to watch people keep giving. And we're able to give still in Martin's name. It's been a really neat thing."
Burnham says the Lord has continued to work mightily in her life, and that God's grace has been evident in the nearly two years since her release. However, there was a time when her outlook for the future was shadowed by the sorrow of her past ordeal. "When I came home from the jungle without Martin, I think I kind of thought the best of my life was over, and I was just going to come home and take care of my kids and do the best I could," she says.
But the missionary says the Lord had other plans for her. "I think God's been showing me just recently that grace says the best is yet to come for me. I think the Lord's just given me a little kick in the feet to get out there and trust Him that the rest of life is going to be just as good as life was when Martin and I were on the mission field," she says.
Burnham has recently released an updated edition of her book In the Presence of My Enemies (Tyndale, 2003), which details the high and low moments of her and Martin Burnham's captivity, and how it affected her own faith as well as her love for people of other faiths.
