March 29, 2010 issue
Faith grew during hostage ordeal
Missionary speaks to women in Kansas
By Susan Miller For Mennonite Weekly ReviewPage:
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MOUNDRIDGE, Kan. — While held hostage in the Philippines, Gracia Burnham cried out to God for water.
Gracia Burnham demonstrates some of the many ways she used her malong, a piece of fabric, while a captive of the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. — Photo by Susan Miller
Later as she was able to trust more fully in God, she changed her prayer: “God, I think you know what I need.”
Burnham testified of the sufficiency of God’s grace as she spoke to 500 women at Eden Mennonite Church at the annual spring supper sponsored by Mennonite Women of Western District and South Central conferences.
“God redeemed me,” Burnham said. “In the midst of the messes of our lives, we can find comfort.”
Burnham, a former missionary with New Tribes Mission in the Philippines, revealed the terror of her life as a hostage of the Abu Sayyaf rebels. She and her husband, Martin, a missionary pilot, were abducted May 27, 2001, and held until June 7, 2002, when Martin was killed and Gracia injured in a gun battle between the Abu Sayyaf and Philippine Army soldiers.
She came home in a wheelchair to Rose Hill to be reunited with her parents and the couple’s three children. Martin’s body was returned in a casket.
The couple endured a year on the run with their captives, facing near starvation and a lack of shelter and other basic provisions.
In between gun battles, the Burnhams and other hostages had reprieves from the fighting, oppressive heat, annoyance of flies and swarms of mosquitoes when their captors took them up into the mountains. But there was no food.
“I thought we’d starve,” she said. “There were days I begged for bread.”
While staying in the lowlands they could find food and supplies that their captors stole from villagers or dead soldiers, but they were then subject to the army’s attacks.
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