It’s a question every missionary faces, no matter how long they serve. But few face the tragic realities that Gracia and Martin Burnham awoke to during a weekend getaway from their missionary compound, when they were taken at gunpoint from their hotel room.
In the Presence of My Enemies
Gracia courageously and powerfully shares the details of their daily struggles for survival, and how they learned to live with contentment and trust, despite the circumstances. She recounts the details of starvation, sickness, and the constant threats of siege and attack.
During the ordeal, Gracia writes, “I realized that when everything is stripped away from you, and you have nothing, you find out what you really are deep down inside. What I was starting to see was not pretty.”
But this is not just the story of their captivity, it is also the story of the maturing of faith that comes through such trial. “We learned that the fruit of the Spirit could not be drummed up by ourselves,” she wrote, “We couldn’t force joyfulness or loving action or a peaceful mind. The Holy Spirit had to grow those things within us.”
Although I have never faced days of forced marching through mountainous terrain, I have faced the daily challenges that many of us face. The same challenges that force us to consider where we will turn when life gets tough. “I knew we had survived,” she wrote, “only by depending on Christ, the solid Rock of our faith and hope.”
I finished this book just the day before Easter, often choked up and on the verge of tears… inspired by their story, and their reminder that, in Christ, “the ultimate ransom has been paid for my sins.”