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Kidnappings plague New Tribes Mission

By Compass Direct

Just a month after Colombian rebels in 1985 kidnapped pilot Paul Dye and three others with New Tribes Mission (NTM), Dye escaped at night from the rebels’ camp. He pushed away branches covering the airplane, cranked the engine and took off in a dense fog down a clandestine airstrip. Then he saw his fuel gauge-empty. His choices: set the plane down immediately or crash.

“He just blindly went back into that fog and put it down,” said NTM vice chairman Dan Germann. It happened that below Dye’s plane was a field. After making the emergency landing, he alerted authorities. Soon the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas who had held him released the other three missionaries.

It was NTM’s first in what has become a string of kidnappings involving the mission’s workers. Germann said that the happy ending gave the mission a false sense of security. “You know how you think that things will probably work like they worked before,” he said. “Nothing has worked the same since.”

Since that time, NTM has had five other missionaries kidnapped and killed in Colombia. In September, the mission concluded after multiple guerrilla testimonies that Dave Mankins, Rick Tenenoff and Mark Rich, whom FARC rebels abducted in 1993, were killed in Colombia in 1996. In January 1994, guerrillas overran an NTM boarding school in central Colombia and captured NTM missionaries Steve Welsh and Timothy Van Dyke. Guerrillas killed them a year and a half later.

On the other side of the world on May 27, Islamic Abu Sayyaf guerrillas captured NTM workers Martin and Gracia Burnham, who minister in the Philippines. The two were snatched while celebrating their anniversary with an overnight stay at a resort. Abu Sayyaf is linked to the Islamic fundamentalist network of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden. FARC and Abu Sayyaf are both on the US State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

But NTM seems to receive more than its share of attacks against its workers.

“By targeting remote areas and minority groups, we’re some of the most vulnerable, simply because of where we go,” Germann said. “You do stick out when you work like that.”

Can the mission do anything to reduce its vulnerability? Probably not much if it wants to be an effective mission, Germann said. While a businessman “hardening” himself as a target may improve a company’s bottom line, for a missionary to do that would defeat the purpose of living among the people to share the gospel. “Some of those approaches to risk control have to do with creating an immune barrier between you and the people you’ve come to minister to,” he said. “If we were in an environment where we were going to do business, we’d probably do it from a hotel in Bogota.

“But we’re in an environment where we want to preach the gospel to people in primitive settings. There are no shortcuts. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to live among them. Will we do everything possible to minimize risk? Absolutely. But we can’t shut down the job of missionary work around the world,” Germann said.

NTM spokesman Scott Ross said that safety concerns have prompted the mission to move its workers from the Philippine island of Palawan, where the Burnhams were kidnapped, from the Indonesian island of Java, which is becoming increasingly unstable due to rebel activity, and another remote tribal area not disclosed. “Java is the most volatile area,” he said. The African country of Senegal is another volatile area where NTM workers are ministering. Ross said that mission officials are watching Senegal closely.

He said that the evacuations may be temporary. “At some point we may be able to move people back,” he said.

In addition, NTM had already reduced its Colombian presence from around 50 to 10. Many NTM workers who left Colombia have continued their work with people groups that spill over borders by relocating to neighboring countries, he said.

The mission is planning to train its workers in what would happen should they be kidnapped. The training aims to help them understand the psychology of what they might endure in a hostage situation and prepare for it should it happen, Ross said. NTM receives regular risk advisories from the US State Department but may also begin offering regular security reports to its members as well.

After Islamic terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, however, Germann believes that no missionary will ever be safe from extremist violence.

“The general consensus is missions is going to be different,” he said. “The challenge is going to be there. If you’re going to be involved in missions, there’s going to be a cost.

“And somewhere along the line, you’re going to be faced with the issue: Am I willing to give my life if that were to be the cost? Would that be a price too hard to pay?”

December 21, 2001