In the Presence of My Enemies (43 page)

“Mom! You’re not gonna wear that!”

“Yes, I am.” And it was a good thing I did. On the last portion of our journey, flying from Tokyo to Manila, I sat by a talkative Filipino man. He started asking questions—where did I live in America, where I was going, and so forth. Then came the clincher: “What’s your family name?”

I wasn’t prepared for a question that specific. I stumbled around, finally admitting, “Burnham.”

His face grew serious. “You know, a few years ago, there was a couple in our country by that name,” he said in a low tone. “They were with the Peace Corps, I think. . . . They were taken hostage by the Abu Sayyaf. It was a really sad story.” He launched into great detail from there.

I sat listening and holding my breath. Finally, he finished.

I had to make some kind of response. What should I say? I shook my head and murmured ever so slowly, “You know . . . I’ve heard of them.” I then immediately grabbed a pillow and pretended to sleep the rest of the flight.

We got through immigration smoothly and met our missionary friends. They whisked us away and out of the city toward Aritao, where we had lived so long ago. There the wig came off, of course.

How special it was to be in this familiar place once again, after three and a half years. We went to the marketplace to buy Christmas gifts for each other. People were amazed to see me. “Mrs. Burnham, aren’t you nervous?” they would ask me.

“What should I be afraid of?” I would reply.

“Oh, well, I guess there’s no Abu Sayyaf up here.”

We had a wonderful time. We bought supplies to give to nearby victims of a recent typhoon. We sang carols with them and listened to their tragic stories of loss.

It was good for the kids to be reimmersed in their former life. I could see them relax. They truly reached closure. The missionary family now living in “our” house invited us over for a meal. The kids walked around joyfully recalling the past. “Mom, remember when Dad remodeled this bathroom?” It was a wonderful evening.

The kids took long hikes up into the mountains. They spent one whole night there with some of the other MK teenagers, setting off New Year’s fireworks at midnight. They hiked back the next day.

We showed up unannounced at the annual New Tribes conference, where NTM missionaries from all the different islands gather for a week. My presence threw the schedule for a loop. People wanted me to speak. They needed closure, too. Jeff made up a goofy song for “skit night” and got everybody laughing. It was all so good.

On the road back to Manila, we stopped at a large KFC for lunch. I noticed people whispering to one another. Soon somebody rushed to his car to get a book for me to sign. I ended up signing napkins and posing for lots of pictures with people. It got kind of crazy, and we escaped as soon as we could.

Finally, after three wonderful weeks, we flew home again. Sometime the following April, the Philippine media called my home to ask, “Is it true that you were here for Christmas last year?” Yes, it was true.

A Channel for Good

That trip, I hope, won’t be my last—although security is always a consideration. In the meantime, I’m constantly on the lookout for ministry openings that the Martin & Gracia Burnham Foundation can take up. I started this entity, on the advice of some wise friends, shortly after I was freed from captivity and started receiving checks from caring people. They had prayed for us throughout the year we were in the jungle and wanted so badly to help—but couldn’t. Now that I was back in the States, their concern and love found an outlet. They assumed I could steer the money toward God’s purposes in the Philippines and elsewhere.

So I defined four parameters for the ministry:

• Muslim evangelism

• tribal evangelism

• mission aviation

• the persecuted church

I also determined that we would put donations to work right away. In other words, we wouldn’t try to create an ongoing endowment and just give away a percentage of the proceeds. If somebody gave ten dollars, we would send ten dollars out the door as efficiently as possible.

I was shaking hands with a lady in a book-signing line in Boston one day back in 2003, and she asked me, “How can I pray for you?”

“You know,” I answered, “the last few weeks I’ve just had a burden for Muslim women. I don’t know what to do with it. Pray that I’ll figure that out.”

“Well, do you know about Project Hannah? When you get home, Google it, and maybe this will be an answer.”

I followed through and found out this was a ministry of Trans World Radio, a midmorning on-air “magazine format” program for women that gives child-rearing tips, recipes, and health advice, along with presenting the gospel of Jesus. It’s aired in Muslim nations and all over the world.

So I called TWR and asked whether they aired Project Hannah in the southern Philippines. “Actually, we do,” they said.

“What does it cost for a year?”

They gave me a figure.

I then called the members of our foundation board and got a quick approval. When I called TWR back a few days later and said we would underwrite this, there was a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally, the man said, “Right now down the hall, they’re having a meeting about this. There’s no money for preparing the Philippine edition of Project Hannah, and they’re talking about whether to cancel it.”

We’ve supported this project ever since.

We’ve also been happy to give to the Ibaloi translation project (Old Testament), the tribal group up on Luzon that Paul and Oreta Burnham served for so long. But we don’t give to individuals; we give to projects. And we certainly don’t give to any Burnhams directly, even though we have several missionaries in the family.

I was speaking at a university in Arkansas, and the young man who planned the banquet told me his dad and Martin had been good friends during high school back at Faith Academy. “In fact,” he continued, “my grandparents spent their lives translating the Scriptures into . . .” and he named the tribal language that many Abu Sayyaf speak. “They are retired now in the Dallas area.”

I couldn’t wait to contact them. I learned that much of their work was out of print. To me, that was unacceptable. I began to pray.

After I spoke at a church in Annapolis, Maryland, they gave the foundation five thousand dollars to print a series of thirteen “Lives of the Prophets” comic books that this couple had translated years before. The stories are about Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and on through Christ. They have proven to be very popular.

We also resurrected a set of morning and evening readings from Isaiah and Psalms especially chosen for Ramadan (the month of Muslim fasting). Again, the selections are keyed to prophecies about Jesus.

When we considered doing a bilingual dictionary for this language and English, we realized it would cost more than our foundation could handle. We managed to get a Tyndale House Foundation grant to help us on this one. The book is now being bundled for distribution throughout the southern Philippines with the New Testament and the comic books.

The most exciting recent news has been our partnership with a couple who minister at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City , a maximum-security prison in the Manila area where a number of Abu Sayyaf are incarcerated. They conduct Bible studies, distribute literature, and do ministerial training of those who are genuinely converted and called to God’s work. Nine of the prisoners, in fact, are now considered to be pastors within the facility.

The couple has given out copies of my book. One result has been that these inmate pastors, who had shunned the Abu Sayyaf prisoners as despicable, have warmed up to them, saying, “If Gracia can forgive and love those guys, then we can, too.”

Some of the terrorists who held Martin and me are now locked up in Muntinlupa—for example, one of the trio who broke into our resort room that first awful morning is serving a life sentence. I’m told he wants nothing to do with American visitors.

Another guy, on the other hand, is more friendly. He writes to me like a pen pal. He’s proud of the fact that he “was once a cook for Gracia Burnham.” I had to chuckle at one of his recent letters that said, “Even though I am here in jail, I has no fault; I am good.” (Oh, really? This is the guy who beheaded a passerby one day and came up the hill laughing, with blood all over his yellow T-shirt.) He always signs his letters, “Your friend.”

He has only one leg now, due to the fact that on the day Martin died, he was injured and couldn’t keep up with the rest of his comrades fleeing down the river. They left him behind with five hundred pesos (ten dollars) to fend for himself. Three days later, the Philippine military found him. Gangrene had set in, and they had to amputate.

His story on all this today, incidentally, is that the
Americans
cut off his leg to keep him from running away.

But on the positive side: This man is now going to the Bible studies, although he is not yet a believer in Christ. The Bible study leader looked around the circle one day not long ago and counted up more Muslims than non-Muslims. At least three Abu Sayyaf have definitely come to know the Lord in this prison—perhaps more. I know two of them. Their change to new life in Christ is obvious, I’m told.

Granted, at first they took heat from fellow inmates, sometimes getting punched and hearing threats that their family members in the southern Philippines would be kidnapped if they didn’t give up this new faith. As time has passed, however, those confrontations have lessened.

As one who spent more than a few nights of my own trying to sleep on the hard ground, I feel for the guys in Muntinlupa. Yes, they’re Abu Sayyaf—but they’re still human beings. And they are souls in need of a Savior. I spoke to a group of senior citizens at a Missouri church who got interested in sending a large shipment of blankets for the prisoners—not so much for warmth there in the tropics, but to roll up under their heads for pillows. Each blanket was embroidered with “Jesus, the Messiah.”

I talked with my kids about our family sending some of the men a little money each month—maybe ten dollars each so they could buy fresh fruit and vegetables in the prison’s open market to supplement their diet or a pair of
tsinelas 
to wear on their bare feet. They said, “Sure, Mom—let’s do it.” Some people in Western nations sponsor poor children with a monthly gift for food, medical care, and school fees; I guess we’re “sponsoring” Abu Sayyaf prisoners!

I also instruct the contact couple to buy any handmade crafts the Abu Sayyaf make to sell, telling the guys that Gracia Burnham is their customer. This results in my getting boxes of these things to give away. I also send the men postcards of Kansas, so they can see where I live now. I am excited to be reaching out once again to the Abu Sayyaf and other Filipinos in a variety of ways. My kids are energized by this as well. It gives some validity to what their dad died for.

Everywhere I go, I ask people to start praying for these Abu Sayyaf prisoners. They are desperate and poor. Their neediness has caused them to begin looking to the Lord for answers. They have time to think about life and eternity.

There cannot be a harvest without seed planters. And the seed we planted in the jungle did not die. All these years later, we are watching God do something awesome, and we are amazed.

Martin and I lived among the terrorists for a year, separated from our loved ones. Only the grace of the Lord carried us through. Now the tables are turned; I have total access to my kids, while these Abu Sayyaf are shut off from their wives and children. The same Lord is waiting to give rest and peace to their souls. It is part of my daily joy to help make that connection.

Photo Insert

Martin’s love affair with flying machines began on weekend trips home from boarding school.

The man of my dreams

A special place for a special question