Sign up for our free newsletter:

As millions of Americans watched the Dallas Cowboys pummel the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII on the final night of January 1993, three American missionary families in the isolated Panama rain forest settled into their nightly routine.

Earlier on that Sunday, 28 members of the indigenous Kuna tribe had attended a believers' meeting facilitated by the New Tribes Missions (NTM) families in the village of Pucuro, population 300. The Americans had moved to the village in the Darien province of Panama to translate the Bible into Kuna as well as to teach the Indians how to read and write their own language. Dave Mankins, the missionary who had been in the community the longest, stretched out in a hammock, near his front door to listen to news on a short-wave radio. His wife, Nancy, read a book by flashlight in her hammock.

Suddenly three men wearing camouflage uniforms and toting machine guns burst through the front screen door. When Dave stood up they hit him with the butt of their rifles and pointed the automatic weapons at his head.

Nancy, instantly recalling a one-hour NTM training course on what to do in a terrorism situation, remained calm and deciphered what the intruders wanted as they rapidly yelled in Spanish. They tied Dave's hands behind his back and then ransacked the house, seizing the short-wave radio, laptop computer, tape recorder, and money.

Nancy initially thought the men only wanted to steal possessions, but then one ordered her to pack a suitcase that contained three sets of clothes for her husband. She included a Bible in the bag.

One invader went outside and fired a shot into the air. Two shots rang out in the distance, signaling—Nancy knew—that similar invasions had taken place at the home of the other two missionary families in the village.

At his residence, Rick Tenenoff had been sitting in a hammock while his wife, Patti, finished putting their two youngest children to bed. Patti heard a scuffle in the living room. As she looked down the hallway she saw Spanish-speaking intruders tying her husband's hands. When ordered to pack a suitcase for Rick, Patti had the presence of mind to include a family photo. Likewise, thieves burst into the home of Mark and Tania Rich, who had just finished rocking their two little girls to sleep.

These interlopers took the men—Dave Mankins, then 43; Rick Tenenoff, 36; and Mark Rich, only 23—into the jungle. The last image the wives had of their husbands was the men being marched away, hands bound behind their backs. The women gathered at the Tenenoff house, trying to make sense of the few moments of terror and confusion. The swirling events seemed surreal, as the men who took their husbands didn't reveal their identity or objectives.

Nancy Mankins wanted to travel by river to a Panamanian town for help, but the dark prevented such a venture from being safe. Besides, Kuna men warned her that the invaders threatened anyone who left the village. The Indians had seen 100 armed men surrounding the village in trees and on rooftops as the abductions took place.

From that point on, the women never saw or talked to their husbands again. The circumstances of that January night a decade ago this month serve as a reminder of how dangerous missionary life is in today's world.

Life in the jungle
Dave and Nancy Mankins accepted Jesus as their Savior on the same night in 1976, and they soon heard about NTM, an organization based in Sanford, Florida, that has 3,200 missionaries worldwide. The fact that some people still didn't have a written language enthralled Dave. He gave up his career as a draftsman and Nancy left her work as an escrow officer. After Bible school and language instruction, the Mankins in 1986 became the first of the three missionary families to arrive in Pucuro. Although missionaries had lived in the community as much as 15 years earlier, those predecessors taught in Spanish rather than the Kuna native tongue.

Dave translated chronological Bible lessons—beginning with the creation story from Genesis—into the Kuna language and by January 1993 he had finished the resurrection of Jesus.

The Kuna dialect spoken in Pucuro is found only in three additional villages. Just 700 people in all speak this variation of the language. Most huts in the village had dirt floors, bamboo-like bark walls, and a thatched roof, with no electricity or toilets. Residents made a living growing rice, bananas, or avocados.

Three nights a week, Dave would teach Bible lessons to between 30 and 80 Kuna Indians who gathered in the village meeting house. Nancy made audio recordings in Kuna of Bible lessons for women to hear in their homes.

In 1993, the Mankins planned to be in Pucuro another ten years, figuring enough villagers would be discipled to carry on the work by 2003. Two years after the Mankins family arrived the Tenenoffs moved to Pucuro. The couple met when Rick worked as a police officer and Patti as a 9-1-1 emergency dispatcher. Patti invited Rick to church and he became a Christian at the first service he attended. Rick picked up a missionary application on their honeymoon in 1981 and they joined NTM a year later.

As with Dave, Rick was intrigued that some tribes had no written language. Tenenoff organized a Kuna/ English/ Spanish language dictionary and by 1993 had compiled it on a computer up to the letter T.

The parents of both Mark and Tania Rich served as NTM missionaries in South America. Mark and Tania spent all day studying the Kuna language upon arrival in Pucuro. They had been married for only three and a half years, and had been in Pucuro for just six months when the fateful night arrived.

The long wait
The wives spent the night of January 31 praying. At daybreak they and their children went by river in a canoe to the nearest town with an airstrip, seven hours away. From there, the mission agency sent a plane to fly them to Panama City. By that time, a NTM crisis management team already had formed in Florida and started sending personnel to Panama.

The following day, U.S. embassy personnel debriefed the women. fbi agents and Panamanian police questioned them. Panamanian government authorities interrogated Pucuro villagers and began a search for the captors.

The wives met with NTM crisis management team member Dan Germann. Because they had been ordered to pack three sets of clothes, the women hoped their husbands would be released after three days. One of the abductors had even assured Patti Tenenoff that she would see her husband again soon.

By the third day, authorities ascertained that Colombian guerrillas, later determined to be Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, had taken the missionaries. FARC, an 18,000-strong Marxist rebel group, controls about 40 percent of Colombia. FARC has been responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in Colombia by bombings and assassinations. Its guerrillas have enriched themselves from extortion, abduction ransoms, and illegal drug trade.

Pucuro never had been considered a dangerous area. Although the village is located only 10 miles from the Colombian border, it requires a two-day walk through dense jungle to reach any town in Colombia. However, Colombians occasionally hike through the region, so the abductions could have been planned long in advance.

Because the rebels stole a radio preset to the mission's frequency they could communicate with the NTM crisis team. On the ninth day, NTM received a demand for $5 million or else the three men would be killed. The policy of the mission group is never to pay ransom because it would make missionaries around the world vulnerable to other terrorists with similar plans.

NTM flew the families back to the United States for their own protection. Back in Florida, the women heard daily by phone or fax from crisis management team members. Their long vigil as hostage wives began.

For Tenenoff, the reality of the situation didn't sink in until she saw a counselor two weeks after the horrible episode. "He asked how I felt being the wife of a hostage," Tenenoff remembers. "I told him, 'I'm not; I'm the wife of a man soon to be released.'"

In April, NTM received a "proof of life" message from the three missionaries over a two-way radio communication. Germann, who spoke Spanish fluently after being a missionary in Colombia for 27 years, moved to Panama in April 1993 and conducted all negotiations. Talks continued for a year, although NTM sometimes went for weeks without hearing from FARC. At times a breakthrough seemed imminent, only to be followed by a lengthy period of silence. Kidnapping usually has an economic motive, and Germann suspects the rebels perceived that Americans living so close to the Colombia border could furnish a quick and hefty compensation for their freedom. The guerrillas probably didn't understand that as NTM missionaries these men received no salary and had to raise their funds by speaking at churches while on furlough.

"Five million dollars was always the demand," recalls Germann, 55. "We told the guerrillas these were not men of means, but they remained unreasonable." The second and last proof of life transpired in December 1993 when FARC allowed Dave, Mark, and Rick's voices to be heard on a radio broadcast. The last communication NTM received from FARC came in January 1994.

In the ensuing months the wives went to Colombia three times, being interviewed on radio and television broadcasts, talking to newspaper reporters, and meeting with government officials. They also appealed for the release of their husbands on Voice of America and HCJB radio broadcasts as well as sought help from U.S. senators and congressional representatives in Washington, D.C.

Meanwhile, FARC continued its nefarious activities. In January 1994, 20 FARC rebels kidnapped NTM missionaries Steve Welsh and Tim Van Dyke from a school in Villavicencio, Colombia. In June 1995, Colombian soldiers found the bodies of those two missionaries in the northern mountains of Colombia. They died in a gun battle between FARC rebels and Colombian troops.

FARC guerrillas also abducted Ray Rising, a Summer Institute of Linguistics missionary in Puerto Llernas, Colombia in March 1994. Although FARC demanded a ransom that SIL never paid, the rebels released Rising in June 1996.

NTM dropped thousands of leaflets throughout the Colombian jungle from an airplane appealing for the release of Mankins, Tenenoff, and Rich. Germann risked his life, traveling to guerrilla-held areas, meeting with unsavory Colombians in an effort to try to find out information about the trio.

The crisis management team explored every possible lead, working with the FBI, the U.S. State Department, human rights groups, humanitarian agencies, and other religious organizations. The hostages probably never received any letters or packages their wives sent to them.

The truth revealed
NTM first began hearing reports in 1997 that the missionaries had been killed, but nothing could be confirmed. By late 2000, as FARC defectors and other corroborating witnesses said they hadn't seen the men alive for three years the account seemed more credible.

A dozen FARC guerrillas guarded the captured threesome and they continually moved in the impenetrable rain forest in order to stay undetected by Colombian soldiers. Finally, in September 2001, Germann met with a captured FARC rebel who once guarded the missionary hostages. The prisoner confirmed that Mankins, Tenenoff, and Rich had been killed five years earlier.

The rebel explained that FARC revolutionaries executed the men in early 1996 during a military assault on the rebels near Acandi in northwest Colombia. In their hurry to escape, FARC didn't want to be transporting any hostages that might slow them down. Colombian authorities later made several attempts to search the general area but never found remains of the men. The executioner's identity is known, but he is still at large.

Danger is the new reality
Missionaries are increasingly in jeopardy in 2003, and not just in countries where Muslim extremists are in control. As the FARC experience shows, some criminal elements have no compunction about taking missionaries captive and harming them.

"It makes us step back and ask why we are doing this," says Germann, now NTM executive committee vice chairman. "It's not to sell a product or for personal gain. Missionaries have a higher calling to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ."

Not so long ago, even insurgents recognized that Christian missionaries and relief workers should be left alone in danger zones because they provide selfless compassion to innocent parties caught in hostilities. No such immunity exists any longer. In fact, since September 11, 2001, Christians have become more of a target.

NTM officials know they cannot eradicate all potential dangers, but the agency has beefed up training for missionary candidates in staying safe and avoiding potential hostage situations. Each missionary now has a personal contingency plan prepared in the event of a kidnapping and field leaders have been trained in what to do as well. And despite the high-profile kidnappings that have ended in tragedy [see "The Great (and Perilous) Commission," p. 65], 18 NTM missionaries who have been abducted in the past 18 years have been released unharmed.

Missions agencies are working harder to prepare candidates for potential hazards. However, some areas are considered too perilous, including the once sedate village of Pucuro. The NTM missionary wives abandoned their homes and possessions that February day 10 years ago. The work the missionaries started in Pucuro remains largely unfinished.

After more than eight years in limbo, the missionary wives resumed their lives.

"Not knowing is unbelievably hard," Mankins says. "Every time the phone rings you hope it's an answer."

Three months into the ordeal, Mankins says she began to question God about why he allowed the abductions to take place and why he didn't answer the prayers of those petitioning for a release. But she says Christ strengthened her as she sought answers in the Bible.

"God doesn't promise that everything is going to go perfect, but he does promise that he'll get us through," Mankins, now 52, told Christian Reader. "Suffering doesn't mean God doesn't love us. This long trial has strengthened me spiritually."

Mankins, who has written the book, Hostage: The Incredible True Story of the Kidnapping of Three American Missionaries (W Publishing), which details the events, today is a national representative for NTM, speaking at missions conferences. Her children Chad and Sarah had both graduated from high school before the abductions took place. Now Chad and his wife, Janeene, are NTM missionaries in Papua New Guinea working with a tribe that has no written language.

Tenenoff, who lives on the campus of a New Tribes language institute in Missouri, says she is not to the point of savoring life yet: "I'm guided by Psalm 118:24 and trying to rejoice in each day that the Lord has made." Her oldest daughter, Dora, had been away at a mission school when the abduction occurred. Her younger children, 13-year-old Connie and 11-year-old Lee, have no memories of their father.

Rich, 33, teaches NTM missionary schoolchildren in Florida and eventually wants to do the same overseas. Her daughters, 12-year-old Tamra and 10-year-old Jessica, don't remember their dad.

"My faith has been tested and stretched more than I ever dreamed," Rich told cr. "This whole ordeal brought me to the realization that I had to believe in the truth of the Bible or else deny God. I don't believe God wastes pain."

An October 2001 memorial service brought closure for Rich. "I'll never forget how much I loved Mark, but now it's time to move on."

The commission continues for Nancy Mankins, Patti Tenenoff, and Tania Rich. Despite the cost—the loss of their husbands—the three women remain NTM missionaries devoted to helping evangelize those in remote regions of the world who have not heard the gospel.

A Christian Reader original article. John W. Kennedy is a writer and editor based in Springfield, Missouri.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.

	What did you think of this story?
	Please to give us your feedback.

Home  |  People of Faith  |  Stories of Hope  |  Today's Culture
Build Your Faith  |  Laughing Matters  |  Archives  |  Contact Us

				Try an Issue of Today's Christian Free! Name Street Address City/State/Zip E-mail Address No credit card required. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only. Click here for International orders. If you decide you want to keep Today's Christian coming, honor your invoice for just $17.95 and receive five more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The trial issue is yours to keep, regardless. Give Today's Christian as a gift Buy 1 gift subscription, get 1 FREE!

FREE Newsletter Subscribe to the Today's Christian Newsletter    RSS Feed   RSS Help