by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – An elderly Christian missionary doctor who was abducted and held captive by Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in Burkina Faso for seven years has said God alone helped him to survive the ordeal, Christian Today reports. An Australian national, 88-year-old Dr. Ken Elliott was abducted in 2016 and finally released last year.
Elliot was abducted together with his wife Joyeclyn, who was released a few weeks later. The couple founded a hospital in Burkina Faso in 1972 and spent the following decades treating thousands of patients from all over West Africa for little or no money.
“This earned them the respect of the Muslim majority making up their patients and saw them accepted as belonging to their community, rather than outsiders from the West trying to impose their ideas,” Christian Today explained in its report.
“Hence, when they were kidnapped locals of both faiths were outraged.”
When Jocelyn was released, Ken was left to share his captivity with a Romanian fellow hostage, Julian Ghergut. In an exclusive interview with ABC Australia, Ken said: “When I met [Julian] he had been a captive for nine months. ‘How can anyone stand this for nine months?’ I asked myself. I ended up being there for seven years and four months.”
Despite keeping him in brutal conditions amounting to torture, the terrorists’ efforts to turn Ken away from his faith in Christ and convert him to Islam were in vain.
“The Lord has been good to me. There’s no way I was going to dishonor Him by converting to Islam,” he told the ABC. “Or even pretending to convert.”
Asked by the ABC interviewer if he ever felt God had abandoned him, Ken replied: “Never. No. He was always there.”
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump was safe after “multiple shots” were fired near his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, several sources say.
Russia and Ukraine say they have exchanged 206 prisoners of war in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates. The weekend exchange was welcomed by Ukraine’s embattled president, whose forces have struggled to halt the ongoing Russian invasion of his nation.
Dozens of people, including Americans, faced a tense Sunday after a military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) handed down death sentences to them over an alleged coup attempt.
Hungary braced on Sunday for the Danube River, Europe’s main waterway, to reach record levels as massive rainfall caused deadly flooding across Central and Eastern Europe, damaging homes and leaving many without power.
Pakistani authorities detained a police officer who allegedly shot dead a man for “blasphemy against Islam” following the recent killing of a Christian on similar charges, Worthy News established Saturday.
Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration demands two permanent seats for African nations in the United Nations Security Council and an elected seat for a small-island developing nation.
The U.N. secretary-general has condemned Israel for attacking a school in central Gaza that killed “at least 18 people,” including staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).