A Christian missionary who was held captive by an Al-Qaeda-linked terror group has shared particulars of his ordeal the place he was held in brutal circumstances, dealing with excessive warmth and chilly, scorpions and scurvy.
Extremely, Dr. Ken Elliott, who was 82 years outdated when he was taken hostage, can be pressured to endure all this for seven years earlier than being launched. However once we ask him how an octogenarian might have survived all this, and for therefore lengthy, he has a easy reply – God.
They served for many years on medical missions within the West African nation of Burkina Faso and had been recognized for his or her dedication to making sure that each affected person who walked by the door obtained the identical high quality of therapy as everybody else, no matter their religion, colour or what. they may pay.
This earned them the respect of the Muslim majority who make up their sufferers, they usually accepted them as members of their group, moderately than outsiders from the West attempting to push their concepts. Due to this fact, after they had been kidnapped, native residents of each faiths had been outraged.
Jocelyn was launched after just a few weeks, leaving Ken to bond together with his lone hostage, Julian Ghergut, a Romanian.
“Once I met him,” Ken instructed the ABC information community, “he had been in captivity for 9 months. 'How can anybody final 9 months like this?' I requested myself, in spite of everything I used to be there for seven years and 4 months.'
Along with the risk posed by his captors and the brutal desert circumstances, Ken's well being deteriorated resulting from a poor eating regimen. And not using a supply of vitamin C, his legs started to swell, making him unable to stroll and in fixed ache.
“I’ve solely seen one case [scurvy] in my medical profession and that was me,” Elliott instructed Britain's Keswick Conference.
Regardless of his pleas, his captors stated that they had no dietary supplements to offer him, and it wasn't till their chief returned to test on Ken's situation that he was lastly given sufficient capsules to revive his well being.
His captors additionally tried to transform Ken to Islam throughout his captivity, however Ken remained steadfast in his religion and by no means let his lengthy, lonely time within the desert trigger him to lose hope.
“The Lord has been good to me. There isn’t a method I’d need to dishonor Him by changing to Islam,” he instructed ABC. “And even faux a conversion.
When requested by an interviewer if he ever thought God had deserted him, Ken's reply summed up precisely how he was in a position to emerge from seven years of brutal circumstances and isolation unbroken in spirit and together with his religion in God intact.
“By no means. No. He's all the time been there,” he stated.
There’s uncertainty concerning the circumstances that led to his launch in Might 2023 and whether or not a deal was struck, however Ken sees no thriller in any respect.
“We imagine the one purpose we had been launched,” he stated, “is as a result of a number of hundred, if not hundreds, of individuals prayed for it. And we imagine in prayer.”
