ICC Note: Three missionaries working for Bibles4Mideast that were abducted by Islamists have escaped and shared their stunning escape story. After being discharged from the hospital following a beating from terrorists, the three were kidnapped in a cab and taken to a Islamists compound. While the men were sure of their impending death, they miraculously escaped their imprisonment and walked two days in the desert to reach home.
06/21/2016 Middle East (WND): Three Christians working with Bibles4Mideast who were reported missing a week ago have been reunited with their coworkers and are telling a stunning story of abduction and threats and even a mysterious tunnel escape from a locked basement prison and two days’ walk across the desert to safety.
Pastor Paul Ciniraj, the director of Bibles4Mideast, sent WND a report on the return of Pastors Stephan and Samuel and Evangelist James on Monday evening in the Middle East.
WND reported a week ago that the three were attacked and beaten by “Muslim extremists” and then disappeared after they began to be suspicious over their safety in a hospital and asked to be discharged.
The members of the organization that delivers Bibles to underground house churches at various locations in 17 countries in the Middle East, a region entirely dominated at this point by Islam, reportedly got into a taxi en route home, then vanished.
The ministry, which for security reasons does not disclose its exact locations and operations, said on Monday the escape by the three men was miraculous.
They were tired and weak because of food and sleep deprivation and their long walk across the desert.
But they described how they had been returning from a worship service June 12 when they were accosted and attacked.
“Extremists jumped on us with iron pipes and stickers, took the Bibles from our hands by force, [tore them and threw them away].”
Then “somebody started beating us.”
The attackers were distracted when a bus of travelers stopped nearby, and those rescuers took the three to the hospital.
There, however, the missionaries were suspicious of what was happening and asked to be discharged.
They then hired a taxi, a “fake,” called that because they are unlicensed.
“There were two other passengers also inside the taxi. But when [the] car moved, they [pointed a] revolver toward us,” the three reported.
At that point they were bound and gagged, assaulted again and locked in a cellar that had the odor of dead bodies.
There was only one door, and “We thought our death is near.”
But “after three or four days,” they saw a light spread over the room and sensed “costly perfume.”
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