REMASTERED: #30 Forgiving My Kidnappers - Gracia Burnham

This show is part of the Proclaim Podcast Network, thoughtfully crafted, faithfully told, stories that proclaim his name. More at Proclaim.fm They got on the phone right away and made a bunch of demands. Philippine military, of course, surrounded the place and there was shooting, shooting, shooting. And these A-10s came in bombing the place. I thought we would die there. I was pretty sure we were just going to die. I'm Paul Hastings and you're listening to Compeld where we use gripping, immersive storytelling to bring to life Christian testimonies from the Kingdom of God, told by the people Compeld live for him. In a recent episode, we heard the conclusion of Jonathan Pacheco's story. After being confined to a wheelchair his entire life, Jonathan was forced to trust God every step of the way. You can hear the entire story by tuning into episode 28 and 29 with Jonathan Pacheco. Today, our guest is Graysha Burnham, a missionary to the Philippines who was kidnapped and held hostage by Muslim terrorists for over a year. Her faith would be tested to the limits as she began questioning if God still loved her. So gather round, lean in and join us for another compelling story from the Kingdom of God. My wife Sarah and I sat down with Graysha in my wife's hometown of Derby, Kansas. Graysha grew up in a Christian household and gave her a life to the Lord early on as a child. After she grew older, she attended Bible College in Kansas City where she met her husband Martin Burnham. Then in 1986, Graysha and Martin moved to the Philippines as aviation missionaries. And while they did many of the same activities as regular missionaries, as aviation missionaries, they also had a unique role serving other missionaries in the jungle. We work with people out in the middle of nowhere where no roads go, where you have to hike for days to get in there. They would radio out and tell us what they needed. And we would buy it and box it up and fly it into them or their homeschool materials or doing medical evacuations for villagers who needed emergency surgery or something. So some of the strips he flew into were like 350 feet long with sheer drop-offs on each side. So it was very tricky flying because there are optical illusions. But of course, Martin loved what he did. Pilots loved to fly. And he was good at what he did too. And what was your role on the mission field? I just sat by the radio while he flew and flight followed him in case he went down or had an issue. We would know where to look for him. And I homeschooled the children there. And of course, the pilot family was the party house when people would come out for a break. You know, they wanted pizza and someone to visit with them late at night and play risk till midnight and yeah, and goof around. So our house was the house where people came for just a good time. The Burnham's had lived in the Philippines for almost 15 years and had settled into a great rhythm. They had three children ages 14, 11 and 10 and they loved the work that they were doing. But they had no idea that their world would be turned upside down just days after Martin returned from a trip to America in May of 2001. As soon as he got back, Martin had to fly to the Philippine island of Palawan to fill in for another missionary pilot. And Gratia decided to go along. So I cleared my schedule and left our children with our co-workers, our neighbors. And I went down to Palawan to help him. I knew he would need help. He would need somebody to cook and take care of the visitors that were coming through. And we told the kids will be home in one week. And while we were down there, Martin had jet lag, of course, from his trip across the ocean. And he knew that he needed some, some naps before he started to fly. Yeah. To be safe. And we booked into dose palmists and it was your anniversary also. It was our anniversary. And that's how we justified the cost to go out there. And that night, well, before dawn, the next morning, there was pounding on the door and bang, bang, bang. And what I thought was, oh, a guard is drunk again. But it just kept up the beating. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Martin headed for the door. And even before he got there, these three guys with M16s broke the door in. And one of them took Martin right out. One of them came over to the bed and he lowered his weapon at me and he all go, go, go. So we moved. Oh boy, we left everything behind. I grabbed some flip-flops on the way out the door. Yeah. What we had was the clothes on our backs. They took like 20 of us and just kind of hurt us down to this waiting speedboat. And as we pulled away from the dock, they raised their weapons in the air and yelled, "Alaqbar, alaqbar." And that's when we knew who had us. Everybody in the Philippines knows who the Abu Sayyafar, their militant Muslims who declared jihad in that area of the world. But their jihad has sort of degenerated into a kidnapped baransom group. And we knew we were in big trouble. There were about 20 of us, mostly Filipinos who were on vacation. There were three Americans, me and Martin and Guillermo, a Peruvian-born American. And I'm sad to say they beheaded him about a week into our captivity. Just to kind of prove that they really were serious about this whole hostage thing. So when the kidnapped, y'all, their purpose was for ransom money. It was ransom money. But they told Martin and I, we'll deal with you last. You'll be political prisoners. We'll make demands of the government through the negotiators. And they'll make concessions and then you can go home. So they treated us differently. Everyone else was calling their loved ones and telling them how much money they needed to come up with. And even the numbers of the bank accounts to put the money into, you know, everybody just started in. But Martin and I, we just sat back because they said, we'll deal with you last. And I remember asking Martin, how long do you think this is going to last? And Martin said, oh, you know, six weeks, that should be long enough. So in my mind, I added a few weeks. Okay, 10 weeks. We're going to be in here. And oh, that's the summer. And then we'll have spent our summer in the jungle. And we'll go home and go back to ministry. That's what I thought. Martin and Gracia's optimism about their release timeline was terribly incorrect. This was only the beginning of a grueling ordeal that would stretch the limits of their physical strength, their emotional stability, and their faith. So we were just trying to be quiet and letting it sort of play out. Not to say we weren't scared to death, we sure were. Within the first few hours, Martin started building friendships with them, helping the guys with the watches that they'd stolen from dose palm. From you guys. Yeah. Like they're, their booty. They were staring at these watches and they didn't know how they worked. And Martin said, Oh, I'll help you with that. And he, he said, Oh, look, this one has two time zones. You can put it to Manila time and Mecca time. He said, he was helping him. And the difficulty started in, you know, right there on the boat. On towards dusk, they commandeered a fishing vessel. So there would be more room for us. So on the fishing vessel was what 10 fishermen, more Abu Sayyaf, there were probably about 10 of them that took us hostage. And there were probably maybe 10, 20 more on the boat. That was a lot of people. At one point, they covered us up with a tarp. Well, this is the tropics. The sun's just beating down on you. And the tropical sun, you know, we were just in this hot house on the bottom of the boat. And of course, we had gone pee in the bottom of the boat. There was no bathroom. And at one point, We'd all been taken from our beds and we told him we need to use the bathroom. And so the only place to go was on the floor of the boat. So here we were with this tarp over us, sweltering down with Ick, sitting in Ick. So it wasn't nice, but they covered us so they could come alongside the fishing vessel and buy food. How long were you on the boat? I think five days and of course it's the ocean so you can't drink the water. So the only water to drink soon ran out because they had drinking water for 10 people, not 30, 40. The catch was down covered with ice. So as the ice melted, you know, that the fish were in, that was our drinking water. It was, you know, you just kind of gagged as you drank it. You had to drink something. We were sure that God knew where we were. There on the boat, the fishing vessel was kind of like this ecumenical service, right? Because as the sun was setting, the Abu Sayyaf started their bowing down, praying towards Mecca. The Catholic started in on their rosary. The Protestants said, you know, Martin, would you lead us in prayer? And Martin's prayer was so sweet. You know, God, you know where we are. This hasn't taken you by surprise. Give us peace in our hearts. Give us grace to endure. Be with our families who are going to go through this trial. You know, just so calm and cool. And that's how he always was. And everybody realized that Martin knew how to pray and he became the, he became the chaplain. While it's seen, the Abu Sayyaf were eager to show Martin and Gratia the similarities between Islam and Christianity. The Burnham's quickly realized, however, that even though the captors had several Korans on board, only two of them had actually read it the entire way through. Furthermore, even though many of them would read the Koran out loud, they didn't know what it said. They could pronounce the words in Arabic, but since that wasn't their native tongue, they didn't actually know what those words meant. But finally, after several days at sea, the Abu Sayyaf had arrived at their destination. One night we got close to land and we were just going up and down the shore and nothing. Then we went back out into the, you know, the main waters and then the next night we did the very same thing. And on the shore there was some lamps, some lights. Oh, that was the signal they were waiting for, that their companions were there on the shore. So they pulled in as close as they could and we just got off into chest high water and waited to the beach and started hiking in the dark. And Martin had lost his flip flops, of course. So he was hiking barefoot. I soon learned that hiking at night in flip flops is not a good idea because you're going uphill and downhill and you're wet and you're dripping into your flip flops and they're, they won't stay on your feet anyway. So I ended up holding them and walking barefoot as well. I think everyone ended up walking barefoot except, of course, Abu Sayyaf, they had boots on. And that first day on land, the military found us. We had our first gun battle. When someone's shooting at you, you lay flat on the ground so you'll make the smallest target you can make and the Abu Sayyaf would fire at the military and we would get up and run, you know, or crawl like Marines and training crawling, whatever. And then when there was a volley of gunfire, our direction, we would drop crawl if we could get in a goalie. So that was our first experience with the gun battle and it just freaked everybody out. We were running for our lives from the military, got away from the military and ran into a swarm of bees and the bees started attacking us. So here we were running again from another enemy and we thought, oh, this is going to be bad. And it was. So at first, you know, when you're first going through a trial, maybe your faith is really strong, but reality set in when people started getting rantsumned out because they were rich and then the atrocities started just several days into being on land. They came up with a jeepney. A jeepney is sort of a small Filipino bus with seats along the edge and a jeepney pulled up where on the road, we were late at night and we were all tied together. Getting in the jeepney, no problem. We were still all tied together. We just sat there, but there were too many of us to all get on the jeepney, too many hostages because they needed the guys with the guns. So I noticed that they left three of us off to the side. It was the employees of dose polmus. We heard later that the three guys who wouldn't fit had been beheaded. They were just in the ditch and one of them, they botched the beheading or he survived it. And he's still alive today. They found him the next morning still living in the ditch. And we headed off at breakneck speed on this jeepney just lurching around and we suddenly pulled up in the courtyard of a hospital. It was chaos in there. The guys were taking the butts of their guns and just running them down the windows, breaking every pain, glass everywhere, shouting, yelling, screaming because the nurses were on duty. Imagine just having surgery in a hospital and all of a sudden into your room burst these men with them 16s. So screaming panic and they put us in a hallway and we were in the hospital for about a day. I think they thought because of the Geneva Convention, we would be safe in a hospital. So they got on the phone right away and made a bunch of demands. Funny and this and that and the government response was to cut the phone lines and cut the electricity and that made them really mad. So then the Philippine military of course surrounded the place and there was shooting, shooting shooting and they began bombing the hospital. Where you guys were? Where were we? They started bombing it. These A-10s came in bombing the place. So there'd be a bang and you know, here'd be the fire. I was pretty sure we were just going to die there in the hospital and at one point they came and got Martin and they said come with us and I thought oh no, you know just dread build my heart. They said we want you to call your mission agency because they'll know how to get in touch with the embassy and they can stop this bombing. To get out of there they bribed the military. So another group of Abu Saaf came in dressed like soldiers, came to the checkpoint and just waved and said you know we're soldiers, we're headed to the fight but someone's ransom had come in. So they brought in one of their wealthy guys, ransoms and someone slipped that out the front door to the military and asked them to pull back. Wow. And you know this wasn't the first time this had happened. They knew the game right? So the military took the ransom, pulled back and we escaped out the back door. The battle of the terrorists and hostages had been injured during the firefight, including Martin who had been hit in the back with grenade shrapnel. But now that they had slipped into the jungle, things quieted down and this would become a pattern for the next year. The military would attack the terrorists and their hostages, a fierce battle would ensue, people would be killed or injured and then the group would just slip into the jungle again. And after running deeper into the jungle, the group would remain stationary for days or even weeks until that position was found by the military. In total, the burnums would face 17 gun battles. The whole time, the Abu Sayyaf would continue demanding ransoms for their hostages and occasionally would receive them. And the burnums still held out hope. that after the break. So a quick story. When I was in high school, I started taking dual credit classes at my local community college, and I thought I was going to die. Waking up early in the morning, driving up to an hour to get to a single class, being surrounded by other students who wanted to be there less than even I did, it was just a grind. Because what I really wanted to do was become an entrepreneur, launch businesses, create products, not be stuck in a classroom all day long, learning topics I felt were irrelevant to an entrepreneurial career. And I just felt that the brick and mortar college option wasn't right for me. So after high school, I enrolled in a program called Unbound, which was a much better fit for my life. I found Paris skills training in the real world with interest-led learning and a strong community of other Christian peers. They offer several distinct programs for high schoolers, high school seniors, and for recent high school graduates who are seeking a gap year employment in the trades or working on a degree like I was. So if your student is looking for more than the traditional education experience, then Unbound was made just for them. No receive the skills, experience, and education they need to live and work effectively in the real world. And who knows, maybe your young person will end up hosting your next favorite podcast. Find out more and receive up to $1,000 off your tuition when you mention compelled during your discovery call at beeunbound.us. Again that's up to $1,000 off tuition when you mention compelled during your discovery call. And that's up to $1,000 off tuition. 3 times a week I get my news from the pourover, which in 10 minutes gives me the entire day's news and saves me from endless doom scrolling. They hit the highlights and then offer a Christian perspective and a relevant piece of scripture, which helps me remember to keep a Christ-focused outlook on whatever I hear in the news. And we already know, 2026 is crazy with conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, political turmoil in the United States, and the constant chaos of Wall Street, AI, and social media. In the midst of so much noise, I'm grateful to have the pourover keeping me informed of current events, but also rooted in Christ. I've been faithfully consuming the pourover three times every week for the last six years, and I think you'll find it helpful too. And the best part? It's free. It doesn't cost a penny. Start listing by searching on your podcast app for the pourover or subscribe to their email newsletter, which has the exact same content at the pourover.org. Again, that's the pourover.org. Welcome back to Compeld. Gracia and Martin Burnham were missionaries in the Philippines and had a kidnap by a Muslim terrorist organization called the Abu Sayyaf, and were being held for ransom. But as the Burnham's waited longer and longer to be released, they realized that not every member of the Abu Sayyaf had the same motivations for being there. It was hard to group lump them all into, you know, these are all terrorists. You had the leaders who were bent on G-Hud and running this whole show, and you had these guys who, for whatever reason, one guy wanted to get married. He'd fallen in love with a girl in a neighboring Muslim village, and the dowry was 20,000 pesos, I think they said, a thousand dollars or so. Well, how's this young kid whose dad is a poor fisherman going to come up with a thousand dollars? It's impossible. So he joined the Abu Sayyaf in hopes that a ransom payment would be made, and he could go get married to his sweetheart when he got his share of the ransom. Several of the kids, I counted the children that were my children's age one day, and there were 13 of them. Age 9 through 14. Abu Sayyaf members, some of them carried weapons. So one of the kids, he just didn't want to go to school anymore, and so he ran off, joined the Abu Sayyaf. You know, these were kids who should be coming home to warm cookies and milk after school, right? Kids, I remember after one of our first gun battles, suddenly there was kind of a new guy there, and we were sitting near him. He said, "I never wanted this." He said, "They came through our village." They asked for three volunteers, and if you don't send three volunteers to be in our group, we'll behead some of you. He said, "I was the sacrifice from the village." He said, "I never wanted to be in the Abu Sayyaf. I don't even believe in this stuff." We tried to start talking to them, figuring out what were their ideas of God. Why were they here? You know, just kind of learning their stories, and some of them said, "Well, some of us are here because we're bad guys." You know, there are rules if you're a Muslim. The way you get to heaven is by working hard. You pray five times a day. You wear the right clothes. You eat the right foods. You give alms to the poor. You make a trip to Mecca. There's a whole book, a thick book of all the rules that you follow in hopes that at the end of time, when you face the judgment, Allah is going to take all your good things. You're praying five times a day, wearing the right clothes. All those rules you followed, He's going to weigh that against your sin. If you're good outweighs your bad, you go to paradise. If you're bad outweighs your good, you go to hell. You know, Scripture says, "There's one thing on your bad side. You can't enter heaven. God's holy. He will not look on sin." And that was the point when Jesus died. He took our sin on Himself. But He didn't just take all our sin. He traded us His righteousness for it. And now we're totally forgiven because of what Jesus did. And that's something a Muslim can never know. Forgiveness. There's not any. And so imagine you're this 18-year-old kid who Muslim kid who has slept around, which is forbidden. You've smoked cigarettes, which is forbidden. You've drunk alcohol. You've not gotten up at dawn every morning to pray. You've been lazy and stayed in bed. And you know, you suddenly know that at the end of time, your good is not going to outweigh your bad. And your only recourse is to die in Jehud because if you die in Jehud, you bypass that iffy judgment. You go straight to paradise. And a lot of them said, "We're here because we're bad guys. We need to die in Jehud." Martin asked one kid that we really liked one day. Martin said, "What would make you happy?" And he said, "If I could die in Jehud, I would be happy." And Martin didn't know what to say. And some of them, I think, realized we were all in this mess together. We were on oppositions of the battle. That's sure why. And we were all scared and we all wanted to go home except for the leaders. They knew how things worked. And they were bent on Jehud. At first they told us, "Would we ever steal from you, of course not, the Quran forbids that. And we all relaxed. Would we ever touch your women? Of course not, the Quran forbids it." So we thought, "Oh, all the women are safe. These are honorable men." But what we saw happen was, "You can't keep the law. Even if you make up the law yourself, you can't keep the law." And the longer we went, of course they stole from us. Of course they touched the women. All of a sudden the men were, had these women in their power and they decided to make them their booty of war. As the Quran says, "You can do that." So all of a sudden, of course, this, this, the head guy decided he wanted this girl. And then one of his under-leaders decided he wanted this girl. And then soon it was just, you know, whoever you wanted, that she became your booty of war. Were you in danger of that? I thought I was in danger of that. And we really prayed against that and they liked Martin so they didn't touch me. And I was married, the married girls though, whose husbands weren't there, became booty of war as well. They called it "subbying." They, yeah, the girls just had to. live with them, sleep in their hammocks. One of the leaders of the group, Abu Sabaya, could quote John 316, he said, "There was a day." He said, "I went to this youth group because I just fell in love with this girl in my high school class." So I started going to church with her and there was this day I heard what Christians believe and I was ready to accept it and they started having communion. And I knew that if I went forward, it would change my life forever. And he said, instead of going forward for communion, I made a decision and I ran from there. And I bought into the Muslim faith as my own, Sabaya made a decision. God was working in his heart and he squalched that. The Abu Sayyaf were a mixed bag. While the Burnums were in captivity, 9/11 happened and their captors began celebrating that the twin towers had fallen and thousands of Americans had died. Several of them began bragging that they had actually trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda. But at other moments, some of them would act like children, asking the Burnums to teach them English and some even express desires to marry the Burnums' daughter after seeing her photograph. Graysha referred to them during our interview as "The Lost Boys" from Peter Pan. And the truth is, they were lost. Without Christ, all they could hold onto was the lies of their sin. But soon, Graysha realized that perhaps she too was holding onto a lie. When I realized this wasn't going to be done in six weeks, the real me surfaced. I started hating those guys. I started being filled with envy at them when they had food and they didn't share it with us. All these horrible things just raised to the surface it was shocking. And every time something would go wrong, they would tell us, "Friday, you're going to be released." And we would believe it. And Friday would come and go, and we wouldn't get released. Here was this roller coaster. "Oh, Friday." And they'd say, "Next Friday, it's going to happen." And I would get all geared up for next Friday and it wouldn't happen. And week 10 came and went. And no rescue, no negotiation was working. And I started thinking, "You know what? God doesn't love me. Why does Scripture say, "If you will ask anything in my name, I will do it." Why is that even in the Bible? Because I was asking and he wasn't doing it. Questioning God's love and God's word just kind of threw me into this pit of depression and anxiety and questioning. And it really got bad. And one day I went to the river to just sulk. And Martin came and sat by me and he said, "Gracia, I'm just so sorry to see you giving up your faith like this." I said, "Oh, I'm not giving up my faith. I still believe God made us. I believe He's Almighty. I believe He purchased salvation for us. I just think God doesn't love me because if He did, I wouldn't be in this mess." And Martin said, "Oh, Gracia, I think either you believe it all, or you don't believe it at all." He said, "You've got to decide what you believe is God's word true? Is He good?" And so we started going over all the verses about love because that's what I was dealing with, right? I have loved you with an everlasting love, with loving kindness I've drawn you for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I started just quoting verses about God's love and I thought, "You know what? Maybe it's not working for me." Like, we all have this wonderful plan for our life, right? And we think God's supposed to come through and make it happen. And I thought, "You know what? I need to just believe that God's word is true." He says, "He loves me. Doesn't seem like it. I don't feel loved. I don't feel blessed. I don't feel like I'm in the heavenlies with Him." But Scripture says, "I am. Either it's true or it's not true, and I'm going to choose to believe it's true." And it's like in that moment, "God put it in my heart to start asking for things. Ask for forgiveness in your heart since you can't do it yourself. Ask for love for them." You know, the fruits of the Spirit love joy-piece, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, those aren't things you may happen in your heart. Those are gifts from the Holy Spirit of God. And I started asking for them. And he did the work. I think God changed me in the jungle. Because you can love your enemy for a minute, or a while, a day even maybe. And then you go through a village and they chop some guy's head off. Forgive them? No. They're dirty rats. And they do it again, right? Your enemy does again to you what they did before and all those feelings resurface. So you can forgive for a while in your own strength, but it doesn't last. But when God changes a heart, He changes a heart. And I love that about him. Old things are passed away. All things are made new. Only God can do that. As hard as it was, Grisha began praying for her captors that they would come to know the Lord. But that didn't mean things were okay. No, this was a dark time for Grisha. The captivity was terrible. It was taking a toll on her body. Something had to change. We ended up at the year mark. And who would have ever thought that this nightmare would continue for over a year? And we were just very, very low. We were this rag tag, exhausted team of people because most everybody had gone AWOL. You know, they got out of there. At one point there were 80 Abu Sayyaf, 20 hostages. That's a lot of people to feed. And we were starving and they got sick of it and disillusioned. Everybody, one by one, would just take their weapons and go home. We would wake up and there'd be 10 guys just gone. So we dwindled to 14 Abu Sayyaf, three hostages. And we were starving. We hadn't eaten in 10 days. I didn't know you could go that long without food. Yeah, always thirsty and drinking dirty river water and whatever you could come up with, we drank. One day we were desperate in desperate need of water. And we came across this little pool of water that had gathered in a rock was shaped kind of funny. There was an indented place. And so this stagnant water was there. And as I dipped my cup of water, there were leech eggs in it. After months of terrible living conditions, the constant threat of gun battles and the emotional rollercoaster of continually being told that they would be released. Only to have those hopes dashed apart. The Burnham's finally heard some great news, which you'll hear about right after the break. If you have kids or grandkids between the ages of 4 to 14, then they're going to love listening to the net the opa cast. It's a great way to help your kids fall in love with both science and scripture as Nat Theo invites kids and families in the God's wild and wonderful world where every creature points back to its creator. Your kids will explore fascinating animals while answering questions like, "Can a narwhal get a brain freeze?" "Why do beavers have orange teeth?" "Is a snail born with a shell?" "Or how many brains does an octopus have?" "And trust me, the answer to that one was way different than I expected." A while back, my kids wanted to learn more about the platypus. And sure enough, there was an episode on Nat Theo that we listened to where we learned all about that strange, webfooted, eggling poison-injecting mammal. Every episode of Nat Theo is taught by Aaron Lina, a master naturalist and Bible teacher who makes science engaging and firmly grounded in a biblical world view. The podcast is free to listen to anywhere and families who want to go deeper can join the Nat Theo Club for lesson guides and bonus videos. Join 45,000 other families who tune in to Nat Theo and explore the wonder of the great big world God has made. Just search for Nat Theo on your podcast app. Again, that's Nat Theo. His guitar is like in his kitchen or something. I literally started laughing out loud, making fun of it. This is everything I can't stand about worship music. He's just saying the same thing over and over again. The four chords, they felt like how great they are. Just a new version of it or something. And man, I felt God say to me, "How dare you curse what I have kissed." If you want to hear how God kissed that demo tape, search God Out Loud on your podcast app. Before he started We The Kingdom, Ed Cash made fun of church music. His episode is titled God Spoked Ed Cash about Chris Tomlin's demo tape. God Out Loud stories of people who claim they heard God. [Music] Welcome back to Compelth. Gratia and Martin Burnham were missionaries in the Philippines. For almost a year, they had been kidnapped and held for ransom in the jungles by Muslim terrorists. And finally, they received some good news. Right about Easter time, someone paid a ransom for us. And you can imagine the excitement when some of the money came into camp because this was it. That's what we'd all been waiting for. And we could all go home. And everybody was talking and packing up. And the Abu Sayyaf leaders had a big meeting. And they called me and Martin over. And we sat on the ground with them. And they said, "Someones paid a ransom for you. But we've decided it's not enough. And we're going to ask for more." You know, bad guys are bad guys. And they don't follow the rules. And by that time, the group had split. Some of the guys had gone back into the city because they were sick of this whole thing. Then there was this small group of us still out in the jungle. Well, the FBI had delivered the ransom money. The CIA knew where we were. But those two entities don't like each other. And they didn't talk to each other. So they delivered the ransom to the guys who didn't have us out in town. And they just sent a little pinnance, you know, a little bit to the guys who had us. And that made them really mad. So they were going to ask for another ransom that would come straight to them. And so even the ransom, what we've been begging God for, even the ransom didn't work. And we were so discouraged and laid down that night on some rice sacks. Martin kind of nudged me just as I was drifting off to sleep. And he said, "I'm so glad, Gracia, that when Jesus paid a ransom for us, it was enough." Jesus' payment for us on the cross was sufficient. It satisfied God. There's nothing charged against us anymore. Jesus paid it all. And it's enough. And Martin just did that over and over. I would be in the depths, right? And he would point me again to the Lord. You know, he just did it over and over. I didn't know what sort of man I was married to. I knew he was a neat Christian, but never understood his Christ's lightness till we were just in this awful situation. And he did that so often, pointing me to the Lord. Then on June 7, 2002, the Burnham's encountered their 17th and final gun battle. We'd heard that another ransom had been paid for us and was waiting at this elusive village that we couldn't find. We were just wandering around, lost. We couldn't find the village. Well, what we didn't know was there was no second ransom and there was no village. That's why we couldn't find it. But they had said that to give us value to keep us alive. This day, we heard the military behind us. We'd been resting and had crossed a road the day before after it had rained heavily. You know, the tropics dumps rain. And we'd crossed this road in the next day that the military had seen our footprints and started following us. And we realized we were being followed and kept going. And I was so discouraged. And I told Martin, I don't know how much longer I can do this. I said that all the time. And he said, "Oh, Gracia, I think we're going to get out of here. I just don't know when. Let's just keep going and see what God does." And then it clouded up to rain. And there were certain unwritten rules between the Abu Sayyaf and the military. They never fought at night. So you could move at night. And they never fought in the rain. Everybody just hunkered down in the rain and waited for it to pass. So there was never pursuit in the rain. So it was clouding up to rain. And we thought we were safe. So we set up our hammocks and our plastic sheeting that would shed the water. And we laid down for our rest. And minutes later the military, they didn't stop for the rain. They came over the hill and they opened fire on us. I was hit in the leg. So I dropped from the hammock, you know, because that's what I'd been taught to do, right? Make a flat surface. But it was so slick and steep we were on the edge of a mountain. And I slid down the hill and came to rest beside Martin. And I looked at him and he was bleeding from his chest. And I knew from experience, you know, leg wounds might heal. Chest wounds don't. And he lay there just breathing really heavily. And then his body got heavy. Have you heard that term the weight of death? I think that's what I was feeling, but I didn't really know. I just felt him get heavy. But I wasn't sure he was dead. And then I don't know how long that gun battle lasted 10, 15 minutes. And then the Abu Sayyaf retreated down the river. And the military came down the hill to rescue us. And I started moving my hands around so they would know I was alive. I didn't want them to shoot me. And they started dragging me up the hill. And as they dragged me away from Martin, I looked back and he was white. And that's when I knew he was dead. They got me to the top of the hill and called a helicopter. And we left Martin laying in the rain. I thought, you know, this isn't how it's supposed to be. For Gracia, Martin's death was crushing. Throughout all their months in captivity, he had been the one who had repeatedly pointed her back to God and his love. On the days when she wanted to give up, Martin had kept her strong. And now the day that she was finally rescued, Martin, her husband, and best friend had been killed by friendly fire. A lot has happened since that day. Gracia is now back in the United States. And all of her kidnappers have either been killed or captured. But to this day, Gracia still thinks about the last conversation she had with Martin in their hammock just minutes before they were shot. Martin said to me, Gracia, I've been thinking about Psalm 100 all day long, especially that first verse that talks about serving the Lord with gladness. He said, this does not seem like serving the Lord. We've been walking through this jungle for over a year, but let's by faith, except that that's what we're doing here, that we're serving the Lord here. And let's do it with gladness. And that's just kind of become my my life's theme. Just going to do what God calls me to do. Figure that out. Do it with my whole heart. Do it with gladness. So thankful for that charge at the end. Yeah. I was a different person. My kids will tell you a different person went into the jungle then came out. They'll say, our mom was always on to us. She wanted us to be perfect. And if we weren't perfect, she would yell at us, you know, I wanted the perfect family and we were the homeschool family and wanted everything to be perfect at our house. And I was so black and white and so rigid and so mean to my children. Let's be honest. And I came out and I wasn't mean anymore because I had seen myself. I saw myself for what I was. I saw my sin and I realized God's grace. And I didn't care anymore if the kids went to school with a messy bedroom. I wanted them to go to school with a clean heart. I wanted them to know that their mom loved them. The bedroom has nothing to do with whether your heart's clean or not. And I'm so thankful that for one thing I came out changed. You know, God did it. Wouldn't it be sad to go through this horrific trial and come out on the other end just the same way you went in or worse, bitter, angry, blaming? Wouldn't that be sad not to have learned some life lessons? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So hopefully I've learned some life lessons. After returning to America, Gracia stayed involved in full-time ministry through speaking and writing. She's written two books, the first of which is called "In the Presence of My Enemies," which is about the year of captivity that she and Martin endured in the jungle, and it became a New York Times bestseller. Gracia has also created a foundation that has funded the work of many mission projects, including a Filipino comic book about the Bible, which has borne some unexpected fruit. We printed a comic book series in the Towsug language. Towsug was what many of the Abu Sayyaf spoke. Well, some of the first people to get a hold of it was a couple that does prison ministry in Manila. And they took those comic books into the prison and gave them away and the guys loved them. But they said what's happening here is these guys found out Gracia Burnham. Some of them are coming to us saying, "We're former Abu Sayyaf. We're the ones who helped Martin and Gracia captive." I said, "We'll ask them their names." Here came the names, "Guys, we knew. We'd walked with them, starved with them, lived with them. We know them." And so I thought this is from God. And we started getting together and figuring out ways to bless those guys, projects we could do in the prison and ways to share the gospel in there. And so far, four former Abu Sayyaf have come to know Jesus in the prison. I've been able to even find some of these guys' children and send them to school and pastor in a very rural area of the Philippines. New that someone was going to come and hear me speak a Filipino couple. And they said, "Tell Gracia about this new family we have in our church. He was one of the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf. His whole family has come to the Lord. They've changed their name, moved to a new area, and they're trying to grow in their walk with God." Wow. A good story of God doing a work. It's all him because that's the point of this story, right? God's glory is the point of this story. People love stories of endurance and overcoming. But the point is God's great and God has a plan and God can do anything. And he makes us strong as we follow his plan and trust in him. That's the point. And he gets the glory at the end. God wasn't reacting to things that went awry in our story. God orchestrates things. And I used to say we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and my sweet friend, Marcia, reminded me, "Gracia, you weren't in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were in the right place at the right time." And that's just kind of mind-blowing, right? Just blows your mind that God had that plan for us. His plans are good to give you a future and a hope and to prosper you. And his plan is to establish you and make you strong and make you a voice for him. All over the world he's doing that. Gracia's story was humbling to say the least. I can't imagine what it would be like to be taken away from my loved ones and then forced to live with my enemies for over a year only to lose my spouse at the last moment. No Gracia makes such a good point though when she says that God orchestrates things and there is no such thing as the wrong place or the wrong time. God is always at work even in our darkest hours. To learn more about Gracia, visit her website, GraciaBurnum.org or you can visit our website, CompelledPodcast.com where we'll include links to Gracia's website, her books, some behind-the-scenes photos, and more. You'll also be giving away an autographed copy of each of her two books. Just shoot me an email, Paul at CompelledPodcast.com and tell me what you like about our show. Then at the end of this week we'll do a random drawing from everyone who emails us and we'll select a winner. And if you know someone who would be encouraged by Gracia's story then please send this to them its episode number 30 with Gracia Burnum. It's our joy to release these stories for free. It's only possible because of our sponsors and the generous financial support of our listeners like you. Creating stories like these is not cheap. In fact, a single episode can take upwards of 80 hours to produce. And if you want to help us continue creating more stories just like Gracia's, they consider joining Compelled as a monthly partner. You'll get access to all of our behind-the-scenes interviews with over 100 hours of additional interview content that we never had time to publish. And you'll also get access to all of our new episodes one week early without ads. There's no set price, it's totally up to you. Just choose the monthly amount that makes sense for you and by doing that you'll help us create new episodes of Compelled. To join as a monthly partner or to make a one-time donation just visit CompelledPodcast.com/donate. Today's story was edited by Zach Thaller and Michael Foster, scripted assistance from Mark Weaver and Sound Engineering by Sonomorphic. And our associate producer is my endearing wife, Sarah Hastings. I'm your host Paul Hastings and you've been listening to Compelled. We'll be back next time with another compelling story. We'll see you then. Let me tell you a story. I'm Nathaniel Brown, host of the podcast "Exempla." No matter their age, everyone loves a well-told story. I remember when I was a kid sitting mesmerized as my grandpa told stories by the campfire. Well, now it's my turn. But I don't want to tell stories just to amuse or entertain. The stories on my podcast will challenge you. They'll make you think. And most importantly, they'll point you to the truth of God's word. My stories come from all over the place. They're creative and thought-provoking, but not too long. And all of them serve to illustrate God's truth. To listen, search for "Exempla" that's E-X-E-M-P-L-A in your podcast player or visit exemplapodcast.com. I look forward to having you join me as I tell you a story.