Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 1
Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 2
Captured For Ransom in the Philippines - Part 3
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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Rescued!
Guest: Gracia Burnham
From the series: In the Presence of My Enemies (Day 3 of 3)
Bob: Back in 2002, there was a story that made international news—the story of missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, who had been taken hostage by Islamic terrorists in the Philippines. They were being held primarily for money—the terrorists wanted a ransom. Others, who had been taken captive with them, had ultimately been freed because that ransom had been paid. Here is Gracia Burnham.
Gracia: My family arranged a ransom. Some of the money came into camp, and there was so much excitement. The leaders of the group called us over, and Martin and I sat down beside them. They said, "There’s a ransom been paid for you, but we've decided that it's not enough." They said, "We're going to ask for more." I begged them not to do that—I told them: "This is not going to end well. Please don't do this."
1:00
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Friday, July 3rd. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. Gracia Burnham had no idea how prophetic her words to her captors were. We'll hear today about the concluding days of her captivity. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Back in 2002/2003, many of us were praying for a husband and wife who had been captured by Islamic militants. They were being held for ransom somewhere in the Philippines. We had heard about this capture—we were praying for Martin and Gracia Burnham.
And then the news came that there had been a rescue attempt.
2:00
I remember it was in USA Today—it made national news—as U.S. forces, together with Philippine forces, attempted to rescue the hostages being held by these Islamic militants. It was not long after that rescue attempt that we had the opportunity to sit down with Gracia Burnham, who had shared the story of her captivity and the rescue in the book she’d written called In the Presence of My Enemies. That conversation is just as compelling, today, as it was back when it just happened, more than a decade ago. This week, we have been listening back to our interview as Gracia Burnham shared her story of the capture and the rescue attempt that happened back in 2003.
[Previously Recorded Interview]
Dennis: Gracia, welcome back to FamilyLife Today.
Gracia: Thank you very much.
Dennis: She has written a book called In the Presence of My Enemies. Gracia, I remember that news report Bob’s talking about.
3:00
In fact, I can still remember where I was standing in my kitchen, looking at you on TV, hearing you plead for someone to pay the ransom for you to get out. I remember weeping with you—I thought, "Here is a sister in Christ, and a brother." You know, we had no idea the conditions you were living under, obviously.
Bob: You had been taken captive by a terrorist group in the Philippines—a group with ties to al-Qaeda. They had captured you, along with 17 other people for the purpose of funding their operation. This is kind of their annual fundraising drive—is to take hostages and get the payoff. In your case, there wasn't going to be a payoff. Tell us about the videotape that Dennis saw. What were the conditions that led to that being shown on television?
4:00
Gracia: Oh my. Well, one morning, out of the clear blue, we were in a camp. It must not have been too far from civilization because there had been people come in and out of camp—just civilians—bringing notes and stuff like that. They came to us one morning and said: "There is a television reporter here to interview you. This is your chance to make a plea.” Then Abu Sabaya—one of the head guys—turned to me and said, "Gracia, if you could cry or something—that would help." I looked at him and I said, "Sabaya, how many days of this captivity have you not seen me crying?" [Laughter] And he said, "Oh, yes, that's going to be no problem for you."
Bob: You'd been captive now for six, seven, eight months?
Gracia: Yes, seven months, I think.
Bob: All the other hostages, with the exception of one other woman—
Gracia: —they were gone.
5:00
Bob: So it was you, and Martin, and this other woman. The funding sources had dried up. This reporter was there to try to help them finish up their fund drive, basically.
Gracia: Yes, and we were out of money. A lot of the other leaders had gotten tired of the whole thing and gone home—and taken the money with them—so, we were on our own. We were depending on supporters of the Abu Sayyaf in different villages to feed us. We were going from farm to farm, eating unripe fruit—just whatever we could find.
Bob: It’s hard to imagine a scenario where a television reporter can come in and videotape something; and yet the Filipino government, which had been trying to affect a rescue, couldn’t come in and rescue you guys.
Gracia: That is hard to understand, except when you’ve been in the jungle. You can be several hundred feet from something and not see it for the foliage and everything. I remember—one day, we could hear the military over on the next ridge; but there was no way they could see us or we could see them.
6:00
It’s just dense jungle—so it’s not that difficult—maybe if their intelligence had been a bit better, they could have found us—but just by sight, trying to find us the way they were finding us, it was going to be a chance thing.
Dennis: You mentioned earlier that in order to feed the number of captives, along with your captors, it took a lot of food. They actually killed civilians to be able to provide food for you.
Gracia: Yes. There was one day they had us rest in this—kind of a logging area. A group of guys went off. As the day wore on and we sat there, I started to wonder. Then I heard gunfire not very far away. This group came back, and all of them w...
