At the end of 3001, American missionaries to the Philippines, Martin and Gratia Burnham, made the fateful decision to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary in a secluded resort on the island of Palawan. About four in the morning, there was pounding on the door. Bang, bang, bang, bang. And at first I thought it was a drunk guard or something. And Martin kind of knew we were in trouble. And just as he got to the door, it burst open, and in came three guys with M-16s, and I think one of them had a mask on. The masked men were Abu Sayyaf, a militant Muslim terrorist group with ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Along with 20 other guests, the Burnhams were forced from their room at gunpoint and taken many miles across the open sea to the Muslim stronghold of Basilan. For more than a year, the Burnhams were constantly on the move, living in primitive conditions in the jungle, evading capture from the Philippine military under the total control of their captors. They were the enemy, and we never forgot that they were the bad guys. But on the other hand, they were our family. They were the people that we lived with for a year and hiked with and starved with. And you got to know the personalities of the guys. Soon after the events of September 11th, the news media took greater notice of the plight of Martin and Gratia and kept their story in the national headlines. As a result, millions of people around the globe began praying diligently for their safe release. I had no idea the magnitude of how many were praying. But on towards the end, when things would be bad, I even remember that last day of the June 7, that last gun battle. We'd been hiking, sat down for a rest, and I just looked over at Martin and I said, people are praying for us. He said, I know. We know. Throughout their captivity, the Burnhams had lived through 16 different gun battles between the Abu Sayyaf and the Philippine military. On the afternoon of June 7th, over a year since their abduction, the bullets erupted once more. I dropped from the hammock, and before I even got to the ground, I was shot in the leg. And I kind of slid down the mountain. It was so steep. I slid down a little bit and came to rest beside Martin. And I looked over at him, and he was bleeding from his chest. During the gun battle, you know, the grenades were going off all around us in the shooting, but I just kept thinking every moment was my last moment. And sometime during that time, I just felt Martin's body just get real heavy, a heaviness. Tragically, Martin was killed during their fight. Gratia was rescued and returned home amidst a national spotlight. The outpouring of support was beyond anything Gratia could have imagined, especially at Martin's funeral. I still didn't realize how many people were involved and praying and would want to go. And I looked around in the crowd and I saw some of my friends from college there. I saw some of our co-workers there. I thought, all my friends are here. It was a good day. Martin would have been proud of his funeral. Gratia wanted to honor Martin's memory and have the opportunity to say thank you to the hundreds of thousands of people who prayed for their protection and safe return. During her time of recovery, Gratia wrote, In the Presence of My Enemies, a riveting personal account of her and Martin Hill's deal with the terrorists. This emotionally moving, powerfully inspirational account of faith through adversity landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and millions of people came to know Gratia in a more personal way. Now a much sought after speaker, Gratia travels throughout the country speaking to audiences about the lessons and spiritual truths she learned while in captivity and how God continues to sustain her and the children in the aftermath of Martin's death. Gratia continues to reflect on her ordeal and the lessons God taught her. To Fly Again features Grace's most recent thoughts and reflections concerning the challenges we face when we lose control of some aspect of life and how we can find hope in God's grace. Gratia Burnham lived through a real nightmare of fear, captivity, physical trauma, and devastating loss. Yet she has survived the ordeal more convinced of God's grace than ever before. Gratia truly has lived in the presence of her enemies, and with God's help, has learned to fly again. Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. It's an honor. I don't take it lightly. So I'm so glad to be here. Last night, as I lay down in a nice bed, I whispered, thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you. You know, that's exactly what I used to say when I would lay down on the jungle floor. during our captivity. Thank you God, thank you. Some of the details have changed. Last night I lay down in a beautiful bed surrounded by all the comforts of home with kind people nearby while in the jungle we were surrounded by enemies and we laid down on empty rice sacks that we begged from the Abu Sayyaf. These are rice sacks, you guys. These were our beds. Now these rice sacks are nice and new. This one even has a cheery picture on it. The rice sacks we slept on were dirty and awful and stinky, but I was so glad to have something between us and the creepy crawlies that I thought must be on the jungle floor. Well, I knew they were because one morning I sat up to stretch and I watched a snake crawl out from under the rice sack I was on. I kept him warm during the night. Although my circumstances have changed, the cry of my heart at night is the very same. Thank you, God, for taking care of me today. Thank you that I have a place to be tonight. Thank you that I've made it one more day. So I'm really happy to be here this evening. And one reason is I get to thank so many of you who prayed for us. You prayed for these nobodies that you suddenly became aware of who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, facing some pretty big hardships. And what would we have done without your prayers? It was a radio broadcast we did on a cell phone one day that allowed us to tell the outside world that my feet were really in bad shape. We were taken hostage with basically nothing, the clothes on our backs. And a few days into our captivity, they gave me a pair of old, holy rubber boots that they found in an abandoned farmhouse that we passed. And I was so grateful for those. But I didn't have any socks, and when we would walk through rivers and streams, sand would get in my boots, because they had holes in them, and they would rub my feet raw. There were days they were bloody and oozing. One night, we had walked much of the night. We heard the military was near, and we just needed to move to a whole new area. And we laid down in a field of long grass to get some rest. And as I pulled off my boots, I could see how frightful my feet looked. And I knew to even let them touch the grass was going to hurt. So I sort of piled my boots on the grass and put my feet on top of the boots to keep them off the grass. And it seems like only minutes later, they were jabbing us to get up. Move. I looked at the guy with the gun. My feet. I can't go on. Well, you can't stay here, he said. So I pulled my boots back on and hobbled down the trail with everyone else. That day, they let Martin make a statement on the radio, and they gave him a list of grievances that they wanted aired. And he made the complaints, but he was able also to let people know about my feet. And you began to pray, and they began to heal. I learned to wrap them in whatever I could find. Big leaves or old plastic bags I found along the side of the trail. Anything I could find, I would wrap my feet in before I slid them into my boots. And they started to heal. And I want to thank you for your prayers. Thank you for loving this couple that you'd never even met before. It seemed like our trial lasted forever. And that's how a trial is, isn't it? And there were days I felt like everyone had forgotten us, and there were days I felt forsaken. And I have to wonder if some of you this evening might be walking down a trail you would rather not be walking down. Sometimes we find ourselves in a place we would never have chosen to be. We didn't have a copy of the scriptures in the jungle, but I had some of God's Word hidden in my heart. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am your God. That's true for us, whether we're dodging bullets in a gun battle or facing something just as serious right here at home, right? Greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. When you pass through the waters, I'll be with you. When you go through the rivers, they won't sweep you over. The promises of God, aren't you glad you have those to hang on to, no matter what you're facing? Well, right about Easter time, almost a year into our captivity, someone paid a ransom for us. And you can imagine the excitement when some of the money came into camp, because this was it. It's what we'd all been waiting for, and we could all go home. And the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf sat down and had a big meeting, and they called me and Martin over. We sat on the ground with them, and they said, someone's paid a ransom for you, but we've decided it's not enough, and we're going to ask for more. And I begged them not to do that. I said, this is not going to turn out well. We are sick of this. You're sick of this. Just take the money and let's go home. But they hardened their hearts and they were greedy and they asked for more money. Well, you can imagine how defeated we felt that night when we lay down on our rice sacks to get some sleep. And just as I was drifting off, Martin kind of nudged me and he said, Gracia, I'm so glad that when Jesus paid a ransom for us, it was enough. Jesus' death, His payment for us was sufficient. It satisfied God. There's nothing charged against us anymore. There doesn't need to be any more sacrifice for sin because Jesus paid it all. It's finished, done, kaput. Martin didn't really say kaput. That's a theological term that I made up. But what I hope for us this evening is what I share about my story will encourage you to continue on, to keep going, even if it's not comfortable and easy. While we were held captive, I thought about the Jews when they were taken captive and how the Babylonians, their captors, would require the Jews to sing the joyful hymns of Jerusalem to them. And at one point, Psalm 137 says that the Jews sat by the river and they wept and they put their instruments away because they couldn't sing any more joyful songs of Jerusalem while in a foreign land. I did my share of sitting by the river, weeping. How well I remember that feeling of trying to get a song out without breaking down in tears. I was at the river one day with the other women hostages, and Harira had just learned that he was going to go out on a striking force the next day. A striking force was 10 or 15 guys who they would send to another area of the island we were on to wreak some havoc in order to keep the attention away from our group. And things didn't always go well for them, as you can well imagine. Harira came over to me and asked me to sing him a song. I may die these next few days, this may be the last song I ever hear, he told me. So I just started on the first song that popped into my head. Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. And I got to the chorus and realized what I was singing. Country roads take me home to the place I belong. Home. where I wanted to be, and I almost lost it right there, and you know what? I think Harira did too. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I think there was this moment when I finished that song, when we both understood that we were caught in a struggle that was way beyond ourselves, and we had somehow ended up on opposite sides of the battle, and it wasn't nice for either of us, and we were both scared, and we wished we were home. The Jews had seen the Babylonians destroy their city, level it to the ground, they'd yelled. They had seen the bodies of their babies smashed against the rocks. They were captives and they couldn't force another song of joy from their lips. Have you been there? At the bottom? Wondering how you got there? It happened so fast. Or maybe not for you. Maybe your trial was a long time in the making. It's when we're at the end of our rope that we look up and we seek God, because there's nowhere else to look. And that's what happened to me in the jungle. I began seeking God as my comfortable life fell apart. I suddenly knew that this problem was so big, I couldn't fix it this time. I suddenly wasn't the heroic missionary wife who had it all together anymore. I was tired and hungry. I had constant diarrhea. There was no place to take a bath, no clean clothes to change into, and I started feeling more like an animal than a human being. But worse than that, I saw my heart for what it was. I saw my hatred. I hated those guys for what they were doing to us, for the pain they were causing our family. I coveted the food that they had that they didn't share with us. I was faithless. I blamed God for the situation I found myself in. There was nothing pretty about it. And at one point, I just gave up. And I asked God, God, can you change me? I'm sick of being upset and depressed and bitter. Can you help me? Sometimes I think maybe we're in such a bad way. We're such a mess that not even God can fix us. Have you ever felt that way? We've all heard that God is faithful in every circumstance. He is faithful. And after I asked God to change me, he started, like, doing it. Even in the midst of the mess. The first change I remember had to do with water. At the beginning of our captivity, about four or five days out on the ocean on a fishing vessel that the Abu Sayyaf had commandeered, we got to land and we were all excited because land meant the cell phones would work, the sat phones would work. The Abu Sayyaf could tell the government, their negotiators their grievances and the government would make concessions and we could all go home, right? Wrong. That first day on land, the military found us and we had our first gun battle and we had to start running for our lives through the jungle. And here was this 40-something-year-old lady who wasn't fit. who was expected to keep up with these young guys who were used to living in the jungle, and I couldn't do it. And I especially couldn't do it without water. And there was no water. And as we ran down the trail, I started talking to God about that. God, I need some water. A few minutes later, I really, really need some water. A few minutes later, God, if you don't bring me some water, I'm gonna have to sit down. After a while, I realized what I was doing. I was nagging at God and I made a conscious decision to change my prayer and I began to pray God I Think you know what I need Would you be patient until you bring it to me? I? And then God started answering all sorts of questions for us. One day Martin prayed, God, would you do something special for us today so we know that you know that we're still here and someone brought us a Coke. And the miracle wasn't that the Coke made its way into the jungle. The miracle was the guys didn't take it all and gave us one. But even as so many prayers were answered, our prayer to go home, it's like it was Falling on deaf ears, it wasn't reaching the tops of the treetops. And at almost the year mark of our being held captive, I got really sick of that prayer not being answered. And I thought, okay, if God's not going to answer our prayer to go home, I'm going to start praying for a hamburger. Because I figured if I was eating a hamburger, I was out of the jungle. You know, you go around the back door with God, and I fervently prayed for that hamburger. Martin laughed at me too. Right about Easter time, someone paid that ransom for us, and they decided they were going to ask for more. But for a while, the group had some money. And that very night, they snuck us off of the island of Basilan, which by that time was teeming with soldiers. And for less than 24 hours, they took us to a little Muslim fishing village near a city. And someone went into the city and brought back to Martin and me hamburgers, French fries, Cokes. They heard that Americans like that sort of thing. And it's like God hit me over the head. Can I not supply a hamburger for you in the jungle? I'm God. I can do anything. And when we got the hamburger, but not our freedom, we started to think something must be going on here. God must have a plan in all this. And we both thought that neither of us would make it home alive. and our prayers began to change. And of course we kept asking God for our release, but our prayer became more, God, you must have something to teach us here. Would you please help us to learn it well? The biggest change in me had to do with my attitude towards my enemies. Jesus told us how to handle the problem of dealing with enemies, didn't he? He said, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who despitefully use you. God began changing my heart towards my enemies. There was Ahmed, one of the guys holding us. He was about 14 years old. There were young kids there as well as older guys. For the most part, the young kids did the menial tasks, the things that other guys didn't want to do, like fetching water or carrying heavy loads. But Ahmad was different. His uncle was the number two man of the Abu Sayyaf, and he carried an M14. And since he had a weapon, that gave him status, even though he was just a kid and he was very proud of himself. Well, you know how 14-year-old boys are, right? They're always hungry. And we would go for days, sometimes with nothing to eat. And then food would come into the camp, and I would watch Ahmad steal our group's food and eat it all by himself, in secret. I was filled with envy at that boy. Now, I was the lowest hostage. I was an American, and I was a woman. And that was two strikes against me. And Ahmad decided I was someone he could boss around. And we would be walking down the jungle trail, and he would follow me, saying one of the few English words he knew. Passtetter, passtetter, passtetter. Faster, faster. I couldn't go any faster. We were in a line. One day, they allowed me and Martin to go to the river for a bath. And when I talk about a bath, we would step into the stream or the river with all our clothes on, and we would get ourselves wet. And if we had soap, we would soap up under our clothes, and then we would rinse off, and we would drip dry. Well, they asked Ahmad to be our guard. He didn't want to do that. He wanted to be out on guard duty or hanging around in his hammock, and he had to take the Americanos to the river. So he had a bad attitude. While we were down there taking our bath, he started in on me. Pas deter, pas deter, pas deter. So I started going faster, faster. I guess not fast enough for him, because he started picking up rocks, throwing them at me. Pas deter, pas deter. Well, I'd had it with that kid. I wasn't used to being told what to do, especially by a 14-year-old, and I just laid into him in English. I said, Ahmed, if you don't stop that, I'm going to take the longest bath in the history of all baths, and you will never get back to your hammock. Well, he had no idea what I was saying, right? It was English. He just knew Mrs. Burnham was mad again. And the rocks kept coming till finally Martin Sternly said, stop that. And he quit throwing rocks. A few weeks later, we were in gun battle number 13, and Ahmad was wounded in the leg. We were really in trouble. There was military everywhere. And because of that, they couldn't get Ahmad to the medical help that he needed. And he started to get feverish and talk out of his head and say stupid things. They carried him for weeks. They would have to help him with everything. And one day, I could tell he was very upset about something, and I found out He had messed his pants. There'd been nobody to help him go to the bathroom. And I thought to myself, this thought came from the Holy Spirit of God, you guys. I thought, what if that was my boy in that situation? I had a 14-year-old boy back at home. I would want someone to help him. And I went over to him, and in my faltering Subuano, the only language we shared a little bit of, I asked him if I could do his washing for him. And as I took his clothes to the river and washed them out, and as I threw them over the bushes to dry in the sun in that moment, God totally changed my heart towards that kid. He gave me a love for him. I can't explain it. Ahmed eventually went mad. He went ranting and raving crazy. The last time I saw him, they were sneaking us off of another island, and we had to go through a fisherman's hut to get down to the pier. And as we went through the hut, I heard noises over in the corner, and I thought it might be a big rat or something. And I looked over there. There was Ahmed. He was skin and bones. His hands were tied to one side of the hut. His feet were tied to another. There was a sock stuck in his mouth so he wouldn't cry out. There was a hat pulled down over his eyes so he couldn't see. And I have to wonder where Ahmad is today. Is he dead? Has he recovered and he's walking down the jungle trail pestering some other hostage? Is he still crazy somewhere? I'm so glad I had the opportunity to be generous with that boy, because I can look back on him and not have any regrets, but it's because God changed my heart and gave me the grace to help someone instead of hate them. And God is in the heart-changing business. That's what he does best. And God's still changing me. Be warned, though, I don't have to tell any of you this, change is hard. Mark Twain was right when he said, the only person who likes change is a wet baby. We get comfortable with life. Things are going well. Everything's running exactly how we've planned it to run. And we're really good at that, aren't we? And then all of a sudden, wham, this problem hits. And it's not a small problem. This time it's a big one. And we have a choice to make. We can trust ourselves and keep working and manipulating things so they work out our way, or we can trust God and let Him work it out. And when we choose to trust God with our problems, we come to know Him in a whole new way. And I would encourage you, never hang a Do Not Disturb sign on your heart's door. Allow God to do what He wants to in your heart. Because if we go through life and we just are always comfortable, but we don't learn important life lessons, wouldn't that be sad? We want to be changed so we look just like our Lord Jesus. Isn't that how you want to look? Like the Lord? Little by little, God changed me. I began seeing those guys as the needy kids that they are. God gave us love for them. We started to be concerned about their spiritual welfare, contentment, even joy began to grow in my heart as I learned to trust God. I began finding songs of praise and singing them quietly out loud at night when I would lay down on my rice sack to sleep. Precious Lord, Take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home. During long days of hiking, I lightened my spirits by going through the alphabet with song titles. A. All the way my savior leads me. What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt his tender mercy? Who through life has been my guide? B. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God. Born of his spirit, washed in his blood. C. Close to thee, close to thee, close to thee, close to thee, all along my pilgrim journey. Savior, let me walk with thee. This going through the alphabet thing could keep me going all afternoon. I'm a pastor's daughter, and I know the hymn book. Not just the first verse. I know all the verses. Those great hymns of the faith kept me focused on the one who works all things together for good to those who love God. And it quite honestly helped me keep my sanity. There are no hymns for X and Z, by the way. Well, you guys know the rest of our story, how for months it looked like our release was right around the corner, and then something would happen, and negotiations would break down again, and we would be back to square one again, and how that went on for what seemed like forever to us. And you know how Martin died in the gun battle that rescued me, but I got to come home and raise my children. My kids are grown now. They love the Lord. They're very involved in ministry themselves. And the people that God had surround my children were awesome. One of them is here tonight. Penny Lyons, can you wave? She lived in Rose Hill, Kansas, where they sent my kids back to live with their grandparents. And Penny's son, and my son became very good friends, so I met her when I got back from my jungle experience, and now she lives in Wilton. She's from Wilton. But God has been so good to us. And you know what my problem is now? Because of my experience, everyone thinks I'm an expert on everything, and I get invited to speak places I don't belong. There was the FBI Victims of Crime Symposium. They gave me the whole morning. And it doesn't take long to say, I was one, and I didn't like it. I spoke at Tyson Chicken a while back. When I said yes, I thought I was going to a chicken factory. You know, people with hairnets and chicken feathers flying through the air. And I had my chicken jokes all planned to tell. Why did the chicken cross the street? To show the possum it really could be done. What is the chicken's least favorite day of the week? Friday. Yeah. Then I found out I was going to the corporate headquarters of Tyson Chicken. Tyson is the second largest producer of food protein worldwide. So I ditched my chicken jokes. I didn't think they were appropriate for the chief financial officer of Tyson worldwide. I've been the expert on BBC News. You know, when that panel of experts gives their expert opinion, of course we were discussing terrorism. Next time you see a panel of experts, you can be pretty sure one of them's not an expert. But one event I was asked to do, this was ordained by God, and I love telling this story. It starts the rest of the story. There's always a rest of the story. Several years ago, I was invited to do a lecture series at a university in Arkansas. Well, I'd never done anything like that before, way outside my comfort zone. And I was ready to say no, but I thought, oh, my uncle lives in that city. A free trip to go see my uncle. So I said yes. After I said yes, they sent me the list of the people who'd done those lecture series in years past. Lady Thatcher. Henry Kissinger. The President of Russia, Gorbachev, had been there, y'all. I was in big trouble, but God was in this lecture series, Invitation. The first event of the several days was a banquet given for donors to the school and alumni, and I sat at the head table with the student who had planned the banquet, and as we began eating our salad, he said to me, my dad and your husband were really good friends growing up. And I thought, this kid is mistaken, because Martin didn't grow up in America. Martin grew up in the Philippines. And then this student told me how his father had grown up in the Philippines, that he and Martin had been dorm mates together in Manila at Faith Academy. Well, that explained that. and that his grandfather and grandmother had done Bible translation for Wycliffe Bible Translators. I said, oh, what language did they work in? He said, Tausug. What? Tausug was the language that many of the Abu Sayyaf spoke, and I knew this conversation was meant to be. And I got his grandparents' contact information, and it took several months before I was able to meet with Seymour and Lois Ashley. A dear elderly couple, they came to visit my home in Kansas and we had the best time talking and they told me stories of living in the southern Philippines where it wasn't really safe to live and oh boy did they have the stories. They told me all the things that they had translated. The one that intrigued me right away was this comic book series they did. Thirteen comic books on the lives of the prophets. Those men that Muslims believed to be prophets. Adam, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David, on through Jesus. I told them I'd love to see those comic books. Maybe I should order a set just to get a good look. And they said, oh, those are out of print. In fact, many things that they had spent years translating, risking their lives to live on that Muslim island, were out of print. And I threw a little fit. That was not acceptable. And our foundation made it a priority to get all those things back into print. And the first thing we printed was the comic book series. I didn't bring all 13, but I've got some of them here. We were so happy with them. They're colorful. They're beautiful. I have no idea what they say. They're in Taosug. But some of the first people to get a hold of the comic books was an American couple that works in a maximum security prison in Manila. And they gave them out, and the guys loved them. They said, anything else you print, we want to read. But they said, the interesting thing that has happened here is These guys found out, Gratia Burnham printed these. And they're coming to us saying, we're former Abu Sayyaf. We're the ones who held Martin and Gratia captive. I said, well, ask them their names. Maybe I know them. Here came the names, Zacharias, who on May 27 burst into our room at Dos Palmas with his M16 and took us captive. He was so surprised to find out that our youngest son and him had the same name, Zachary, that we would name one of our children after one of their Muslim prophets, and we just let him think that. In prison is Daoud, the guy that used to sit and talk with Martin when we would rest during our long days of hiking. Daoud's wife and child had died in childbirth. And since the economy is horrible in the southern Philippines, he found himself with no family, no means of support, and he joined the Abu Sayyaf almost as a career move. It was Dawood's job to carry the solar panels through the jungle. The solar panels would charge the sat phones and the cell phones so they could talk to the outside government negotiators. Martin and Dawood discussed all sorts of things from jihad to being shaheed, being martyred. They discussed Dawood's hopes and dreams. Also in jail is Bashir. He was shot in the same gun battle that Martin was killed in, the one that led to my rescue. Bashir was unable to keep up with the group as they retreated down the river, so they left him behind to fend for himself in the jungle with 500 pesos, $10. You can't buy anything in the jungle. You can't take care of yourself. And several days later, the military found him. Gangrene had moved into his leg. It had to be amputated. One after another, they told us of these guys that Martin and I lived with, hiked with, starved with, 23 or so of them. You know, my kids and I had been asking God to do something in the hearts of the Abu Sayyaf. But even more than that, we've been asking for some contact with them, some means of reaching them. But I didn't know, number one, how could I ever find any Abu Sayyaf? Number two, what could I do if I did find some of them? And here, God had just done it. All we did was print some comic books. God did everything else. He even worked out some ministers for right there in the prison. In Maximum Security, there are 11 prison pastors that Will and Joni work with, prisoners who've come to know the Lord and sort of gone through a seminary-type training. And Will and Joni wrote and asked me if I would be willing to donate books in the presence of my enemies to these guys, because they sort of knew the story, but not really. And I sent the books, and their response after they read it was, if Gratia can forgive the Abu Sayyaf. After they did such awful things to her and Martin, we should forgive the Abu Sayyaf and begin working with them. Because you see, up until then, the Abu Sayyaf were shunned in the prison. Everyone hated them, kept as far away from them as they could, because they were the really bad guys, the terrorists. And these prison pastors began specifically ministering and praying for them. This couple comes home every other summer and we get together and make plans and we visit and always have the best time. They bring me gifts from the Philippines. Last time, they brought me dried mangoes. The year before that, they brought me this shirt from the prison that some of the guys have signed. It says, Inmate Maximum. I said, Will and Joni, what am I supposed to do with that T-shirt? You can't wear it to the mall. They sometimes bring letters that the guys have written for me. Could I share the first one I ever got? It was from Bashir and we had to get it translated. We called him Bas for short. It was written in his dialect. It says, I am bus. I bus wrote you to ask you how you are. How about you there, Gratia? I'm here now at maximum security and my foot was cut off. Do you still remember the experiences we had? Like, no. Sounds like summer camp, doesn't it? I still remember every time I cook food, I cook eel good. He did cook eel good. At one point we were starving and we came across a mountain stream that had eel in it and the guys crafted fish traps from stuff they harvested in the jungle and they caught the eel and that's what we ate for several days and Bas was the cook. Everything you said, I will never forget. Even though I'm here in jail, I has no fault. Yeah, right. He's the kid that one day chopped a guy's head off, came up the hill with blood spattered all over his yellow T-shirt. How can he say he has no fault? I also told you when I'm free I will go with you to America but my dreams did not go through. My dream was to become a businessman but it did not materialize because I'm in jail. It's difficult to be in jail. It's very hot here and it's pitiful here and no one visits me here. I want to see you if you have a picture to send me. Take care always." And he signs it, your friend. We just plan ways to show the love of Christ to these guys. I wish I had an hour to tell you this story, but the good news is, so far, four former Abu Sayyaf have come to know Jesus as their savior. One of them is a very violent man with over 20 counts of murder against him, a new person in Christ. a brother in the Lord, and we really can't believe what God's doing, and it's not over till it's over, is it? And we just keep praying, and I wonder if you would want to start praying as well, especially for Zacharias, for Zachary, who's very hard and resistant towards anything having to do with the gospel. Had I known While we were going through our hard year in the jungle that one day even one of those guys would come to know Jesus because of our experience, I think the days would have been easier to bear. And I could kick myself now and say, would it not have been enough to trust a good God with the days of my life? Can we begin to believe that God takes us into hard situations, not to crush us, but so that we can learn to see his hand and learn to trust him when he's doing a good work. And God's work is good. No matter what's happening around you, what God's doing is good, because he's good. And I've been encouraged that there can't be a harvest without seed planters. And maybe planting seeds isn't always fun. Maybe it's downright uncomfortable for you and you don't see any fruit for your labors. You might wonder why you were called to plant seeds because you're not even good at it. But all of a sudden, you see what God's doing. And I've been reminded that the seed we planted in the jungle was not wasted. Others are reaping what we sowed ever so long ago. God's almighty. He can do anything. So keep planting those seeds, my friend. Keep on when you don't see any fruit, when you feel like giving up, just keep on. It's God that's gonna do the work on down the road. You do know that you can have a worldwide ministry to Muslims without ever leaving your living room, right? You can pray. And when we pray, God works. Have you heard about how Muslims are coming to Jesus in droves? My friend from Iran says it's like God is running a special on Muslims right now. Statistics say that the fastest growing Christian church in our world is in Iran. That shocked me. Iranians are sick of Islam. It's a bunch of rule following with no results and now daily terrorism attacks that they have to deal with. Start a prayer group at your home for Muslims. God will answer. God will work. I had a sweet little lady who was standing in line to get her book signed not long ago in a little Mennonite church in Missouri. And she said to me, you know, Gracia, when I can't sleep now, I don't count sheep anymore. I count Muslims. One Muslim comes to Jesus. Two Muslims come to Jesus. Three Muslims come to Jesus. Oh God, may it be so for your honor and your glory. Four Muslims come to Jesus. And I have to wonder if what's happening in Iran might be an answer to this sweet Mennonite lady's prayer of faith. Pray, pray, pray. You know, I told you I would sing songs in the jungle and that there aren't any for X and Z. But there's a really good one for the letter Y. And it's become a testimony of sorts to me. We used to hike for days and nights and days and nights with heavy backpacks through the jungle. So this why song really applies to that. And then these years of speaking and seeing God's faithfulness in my life. The why song starts with the word yes. Yes, Jesus took my burden I could no longer bear Yes, Jesus took my burden In answer to my prayer My anxious fears subsided My spirit was made strong For Jesus took my burden and left me with a song. Thank you guys for having me.