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You wrote about their dismissal of core Christian concepts like grace and mercy.

They really sneered at that. On the other hand, they would turn right around and say Allah is the most merciful. What was the term they used? "More than the bubbles of the ocean is Allah's mercy." But they are not trying to be like Allah. [To them,] Allah is up here, and we're here. We're human. [Christians] want to be like Jesus. He's our pattern. But I couldn't see any of that in their religion.

You and Martin talked about how you were confronted with your own sinfulness during your captivity.

I saw a Gracia that I wanted to think didn't exist. I grew up a good kid. I never gave my folks trouble. I was never in trouble ever. I was a very pliable child and wanted to please everybody and wanted to please the Lord. Then everything was taken away from me in one swift act, and I saw a hateful me. I would hate those guys in my heart so badly and even voice that to Martin. When they had food, I would covet what they had. I wouldn't be glad they had food. I wasn't happy that the Lord had supplied for them. I coveted what they had. I saw myself as despairing, and I didn't like what I saw. For months I would try to overcome these awful things I saw in myself, and it just kept getting worse and worse.

Finally, one day I said to Martin, "Where can I find some love, some joy, some peace? I want some fruits of the Spirit to show here, because all I'm seeing is bad."

And Martin said, "That's the point. We can't drum up in ourselves love and joy and peace. It's not there. It comes from the Holy Spirit. We need to just ask for it." And we started begging God for love and joy and peace and patience and contentment. And you know what? He started giving it to us. It wasn't all the time, but we had days and weeks of contentment and peace. When everyone else was getting fed well and we were getting hardly anything, somehow there was contentment there. I can't explain it. The Lord did it for us. The verse that says "It was good for me to have been afflicted" sounds so stupid, but that was a good thing that happened to us. I learned so much about the Lord, and I learned so much about myself. I'm a different person now.

Your book describes several times in which you told your captors, "Go ahead and shoot me." Did you mean that, or were you bluffing?

I was just mad at those guys. It probably would have shocked me if they had [shot me]. Why would they shoot me? I was worth a million dollars, right? When I would say that, it was to some young kid that I just had it with. It's just a sarcastic thing.

On the other hand, I would have been out of there [if they had shot me]. And I was ready to get out of there, and I would have hoped that the first bullet did it. That's what I wanted, and [Ediborah] said the same thing. And, bless her heart, I think she died quite slowly actually, which makes me very sad. She often said, "If I get killed, I just want it to happen fast. I don't want to suffer."

Martin never thought that was going to happen to him. He's the eternal optimist. What a guy. He just knew he was going to get out.

How strong willed were you in captivity? You had periods of being sharp-tongued with your kidnappers.

I tend to be very sharp tongued, and I speak my mind. That means in general that's how I am. I'm very opinionated, and [smiling] everyone is entitled to my opinion. That's just kind of the person I am. And I feel like that's kind of what the Lord was doing with me in captivity. I may still seem that way to a lot of people, but in my heart I don't think my way is the only way anymore.

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May (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47