Former Hostage Shocked, Pensive Over Terrorist Captors' Deaths
by Allie Martin
May 4, 2005
(AgapePress) - A woman who spent more than a year held captive in the Philippine jungle by Islamic extremists says news of the recent deaths of her former captors shocked and saddened her.Gracia Burnham and her husband, Martin, were serving in the Philippines with New Tribes Mission when they were taken hostage by the Abu Sayyaf, a militant group of Muslims. The Burnhams spent more than a year in captivity until June 2002, when a firefight broke out between Philippine Army troops and the terrorists. During that skirmish, Gracia Burnham's husband was killed, but she was rescued.
Recently, surviving members of the terrorist group were killed after a botched escape attempt in a Philippine jail. Burnham reacted strongly to the news that her former captors' were dead. "I was devastated when I heard that," she says, "because my kids and I had been praying, and we really wanted those men to hear about Jesus in jail and turn to Him."
When the widow and former foreign missionary heard of the terrorists' violent end, she says she realized that, for those men, "the day of grace is over. There is no more time for them." And although she says she was "really devastated" by the news, it was not hard for her to put what happened in spiritual perspective.
"We all make choices," Burnham notes, "and I think the thing I learned from that was that I have today. God has given me one more day of grace. I can use today for God's glory, or I can use it to please myself. So I've learned to just make every day count. You don't know how many more days God's going to give you."
Gracia Burnham's memoir, In the Presence of My Enemies (Tyndale, 2003), tells the story of her ordeal at the hands of the Abu Sayyaf extremists. She has recently released her second book, titled To Fly Again (Tyndale, 2005), in which she reflects on some 21 spiritual truths she learned during her captivity.
