In the Presence of Her Enemies

Gracia Burnham lost her husband and a year of her life after being kidnapped by Muslim rebels.

BY: Interview by Paul O'Donnell

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On May 27, 2001, Gracia Burnham and her husband Martin were vacationing at a resort in the Philippines when they and 18 others were kidnapped by the Muslim terrorists Abu Sayyaf. Christian missionaries, the Burnhams and their three children had long experience in the country, but nothing prepared the two for the indescribable suffering of the year that followed. Moving constantly, eating little and falling sick often, they dreaded beheading by their captors and the random strikes of their would-be rescuers.

On June 7, 2002, Martin was fatally shot during a raid by the Philippine army. Gracia, wounded in the leg, was freed. In "In the Presence of My Enemies" (Tyndale), Burnham details what happened, but admits she little remembers what she felt during her captivity: "My job was rather to put one foot in front of the other, to stay alive one more day." In this Beliefnet interview, Burnham tells of her ongoing effort to come to terms with her hellish year.

From the first pictures we saw of you on your return, you've been smiling and upbeat.

Well, I was thrilled to be out of the jungle. We'd started praying that we'd get out of there even if it meant death. We were sick of the whole situation.

I still am happy. Things can go really wrong at home, the kids can be in a bad mood, but I just find myself being really, really happy. Even at Martin's funeral, I was just so happy to be amongst friends, to be home. It's hard to explain. I know if Martin had come home without me, he'd be the same.

There's been some political questions about whether Christian missionaries should go to the Middle East or other Muslim areas. When you went to Mindanao, which has a good number of Muslims, how did you feel about that?

Certain areas are more Muslim than others, and we stayed away from those regions. I'm not saying that it's wrong to go to a Muslim country. If that's what God leads you to do, you do it. But God hadn't led us to a Muslim area.

You weren't targeted because you were missionaries?

No, and some people are calling Martin a martyr. That's a nice thing, but I don't think that's true. We were just at the wrong resort at the wrong time.

How did your captors respond when they found out who you were?

I thought they'd be upset. [Before being kidnapped ] we were working with people who worship the spirits, and try to appease the spirits of their dead ancestors. When Abu Sayyaf found out we were working with these people who don't really believe anything, that was a plus for us.

We kind of agreed that we believe in the same God. Martin and I thought that one through long and hard. Is the God we're praying to the same one they're praying to? We started talking with them about Allah and they said, Allah made everything, He owns everything. He's going to be the one that judges. He hates sin. He can do anything. He's all powerful, all present. He sees everything. As we went through these attributes of Allah, we saw that that's the God we worship too, the Almighty Being. We just call him something different.

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