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Dan Germann was New Tribes Mission’s (NTM) Colombia director when NTMers Dave Mankins, Rick Tenenoff and Mark Rich were kidnapped from a Panamanian village near the Colombian border in 1993. On September 21, the mission concluded that the three were dead. But those weren’t the first kidnappings that the mission experienced. Since 1985, 11 NTM missionaries have been abducted. Four were freed unharmed. Five were killed. Two, Martin and Gracia Burnham, are still being held in the Philippines. World Pulse guest editor Deann Alford recently spoke with Germann, who is now NTM’s vice chairman.

Did your prayers change for the three men as the years went by?
When the guys were first captured, every one of us was praying, “Lord, just bring them out safely. We know that you are able.” And time went on, we started to pray, “Lord, if they’re alive, bring them home, but if they’re dead, help us to know that as well.” Then, “Lord, we’re not going to stop until we actually have remains.” Maybe six or eight months ago, I heard us praying things like, “God, if we never know, you’ll still be God.” This was quite a distance from trusting him to bring them out safely.

In the end, how did God answer your prayers?
We found a man in prison who cared for them. We received assurance from him that they are dead. It was a gift in the sense that we had come to the place where that was going to be all right if God chose for us to never really know. For somebody looking on and thinking, “How can you really accept that news?” God moved us down the road to where we could say, “Lord, we want you to be glorified, even if we never know.” There is a very special sense of awe of who God is and how sufficient he is when the miracle didn’t happen, but the wonder of his sufficiency is still present.

Where there times of doubt, times when you didn’t want to say hallelujah?
Every day I woke up in the morning with a heaviness [and prayed], “I need you to be my sufficiency to get me through the day.” I’m not in the business of trying to measure what God is doing. Would he invite us to ask him why all those man-hours? What was that all about? What purpose could any of this have? The amazing thing is that God doesn’t put me off when I do ask him why.”

Can you tell us about the FBI agent who ministered to you in a difficult moment?
His name was Denayf, which in Spanish stood for Dios es nuestro amparo y forteleza—God is our refuge and strength. He said, “Danny, my name is something you really need to understand. You don’t feel like he’s your refuge, do you? I can see that you really have no strength.” He began to talk to me about God’s character. God really is a place of refuge. Right now you don’t feel like God is very strong. And you feel like he’s not very loving because this wouldn’t have happened. But God is as strong as he was before [NTM missionaries] Tim [Van Dyke] and Steve [Welsh] were killed.” I was able to recognize that he was as all-powerful as he was before all this happened. This FBI agent was taking time to talk to me about God’s character. Instead of hearing the answer to my question, I began to hear the answer to who God is. And I realized, I’m going to be OK, whether I know the specifics or not. The specifics or the why seemed to not matter as much as who he is.

Did those eight years of suffering serve a purpose?
There doesn’t have to be something glorious about suffering in the sense that it has wonderful results. Suffering sometimes is just plain suffering. Most of the people in the early church met their death through persecution, and it was not glorious or wonderfully productive. It made Christianity a very sobering thing to be a part of. Most of us haven’t thought a lot about that. I think missions is going to help us do that in the days to come.

I’m reminded of children’s Sunday school where you raise your hand to answer, “How many of you want to be missionaries?” You go a little further. “How many of you are willing to lay down your lives?” I watch military reservist drills. Every one of them knows this could cost their lives. They’re thinking about whether liberty and the freedoms we enjoy would be worth that. I think they’re all saying yes. That’s the way I think missions is going to be. It’s not going to be fun little trips. It’s going to be cost. I think we’ll be the better for it.

November 12, 2001