{"id":8462,"date":"2011-10-10T12:40:18","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=8462"},"modified":"2011-10-10T12:58:05","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:58:05","slug":"power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape","title":{"rendered":"Power of prayer credited for hostage’s escape"},"content":{"rendered":"

“God heard my prayers!” says Philippine Army Master Sergeant Elpidio Tavelisma, husband of rescued hostage Evangeline Tavelisma — who says he “bombarded heaven” with prayers on behalf of his wife.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Philippine nurse Preciosa Feliciano is released<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0midwife — held\u00a0 two months\u00a0by Abu Sayyaf terrorists demanding a $350,000 ransom —\u00a0was unexpectedly released by fleeing insurgents when trapped by police troopers and\u00a0local militia Thursday.<\/p>\n

Her husband said it was God’s intervention that his wife was freed while other hostages were herded into the jungle by their captors, who finance their insurgency with kidnappings and robbery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power of prayer did it all!\u201d Sergeant Tavelisma told Manila Bulletin<\/em> <\/a>reporter Ben Cal. The former driver of the late President Corazon C. Aquino, said he “bombarded heaven with prayers” when Evangeline was snatched by terrorists in the Barangay Tagbak area\u00a0\u00a0at the town of Indanan on August 3. She was held in captivity for 64 days while the terrorists demanded a 15 million Philippine peso ransom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Abu Sayyaf insurgents<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“I turned to God as I always do and God did not fail me!\u201d Tavelisma told Cal. \u201cWhere would I get the money? We are poor!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tavelisma, a veteran of the armed the Muslim rebellion in the 1970s and 1980s,\u00a0said prayer saved his life many times\u00a0in combat. He is a recipient of the Gold Cross Medal for gallantry in action —\u00a0the third highest award for a Philippine soldier.<\/p>\n

He admitted that during the two months that his 57-year-old wife was in captivity, he was devastated and feared for her safety.<\/p>\n

He said he wrote a letter to President Benigno S. Aquino III \u201cto seek help for the release of my wife, and I also went to see Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, my former boss. Both promised to help me and I thank them that my wife has been rescued alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early Thursday,\u00a0police\u00a0learned the location of the Abu Sayyaf hideout. “Police forces in full battle gear quickly moved in,” reported the Bulletin<\/em>. “Knowing they were being tracked down, the kidnappers fled, but were blocked by civilian militiamen led by Indanan Mayor Saripuddin Jikiri.<\/p>\n

Fleeing into the rain forest, the kidnappers\u00a0left Evangeline behind.<\/p>\n

“However, four other hostages are still being held in Sulu by the Abu Sayyaf bandits who are now the object of a massive manhunt operation by government forces,” reported Cal.<\/p>\n

Abu Sayyaf has held a number of missionaries and medical workers, including nurse Preciosa Feliciano, who was rescued earlier by Philippine forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“God heard my prayers!” says Philippine Army Master Sergeant Elpidio Tavelisma, husband of rescued hostage Evangeline Tavelisma — who says he “bombarded heaven” with prayers on behalf of his wife. The\u00a0midwife — held\u00a0 two months\u00a0by Abu Sayyaf terrorists demanding a $350,000 ransom —\u00a0was unexpectedly released by fleeing insurgents when trapped by police troopers and\u00a0local militia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,354],"tags":[1719,2201,2223],"class_list":["post-8462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-prayer","tag-evangelina-tavelisma","tag-news","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nPower of prayer credited for hostage's escape<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Power of prayer credited for hostage's escape\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"“God heard my prayers!” says Philippine Army Master Sergeant Elpidio Tavelisma, husband of rescued hostage Evangeline Tavelisma — who says he “bombarded heaven” with prayers on behalf of his wife. The\u00a0midwife — held\u00a0 two months\u00a0by Abu Sayyaf terrorists demanding a $350,000 ransom —\u00a0was unexpectedly released by fleeing insurgents when trapped by police troopers and\u00a0local militia…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-10T16:40:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-10-10T16:58:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/abu-sayyaf-nurse.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Power of prayer credited for hostage's escape","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Power of prayer credited for hostage's escape","og_description":"“God heard my prayers!” says Philippine Army Master Sergeant Elpidio Tavelisma, husband of rescued hostage Evangeline Tavelisma — who says he “bombarded heaven” with prayers on behalf of his wife. The\u00a0midwife — held\u00a0 two months\u00a0by Abu Sayyaf terrorists demanding a $350,000 ransom —\u00a0was unexpectedly released by fleeing insurgents when trapped by police troopers and\u00a0local militia…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-10-10T16:40:18+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-10-10T16:58:05+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/abu-sayyaf-nurse.jpg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape","name":"Power of prayer credited for hostage's escape","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/abu-sayyaf-nurse.jpg","datePublished":"2011-10-10T16:40:18+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-10T16:58:05+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/abu-sayyaf-nurse.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/abu-sayyaf-nurse.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/power-of-prayer-credited-for-hostages-escape#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Power of prayer credited for hostage’s escape"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8462"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8468,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8462\/revisions\/8468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}