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Please pray for this family …

28th March, 2011 - Posted by Wolf Paul - No Comments

Just read the following in IDEA, a German Christian news service:

Entführtes deutsches Ehepaar im Jemen tot aufgefunden?

Berlin/Radebeul (idea) – Aus dem Jemen gibt es Hinweise darauf, dass die Leichen eines vor zwei Jahren entführten deutschen Ehepaars aufgefunden wurden. Die Familie nimmt die Hinweise ernst. Die Deutsche Botschaft bemüht sich gemeinsam mit den jemenitischen Behörden um die Aufklärung.

They are talking about the Hentschel family, German missionaries working in a hospital in Yemen. They had been there for five years when they were kidnapped together with a British, two German short-term workers and a Korean school teacher in June 2009. The single women were found murdered a day later. In May 2010 the Hentschels’ two daughters Lydia and Anna (now 7 and 5 years old) were freed by security forces and returned to their grandparents. There was no trace of the parents Johannes and Sabine, or 3-year-old Simon.

Now sources in Yemen report that the bodies of Johannes and Sabine have been found; German authorities are trying to verify the reports, but there does not seem to be much doubt. There have already been unconfirmed reports of Simon’s death.

In a report on the occasion of the girls’ release, IDEA reported on a prayer meeting at church in Radebeul, Saxony, where Sabine Hentschel’s brother is the pastor:

The men and women are looking for comfort and strength in a twenty minute prayer meeting. Particularly impressive: they are no just praying for Hentschels. Again and again we hear, “And I pray for Tony and his family.” Tony is the Brit who was kidnapped at the same time and of whom there has been no trace since. Pastor Reinhard Pötschke asks for a blessing on the relatives of Anita Grünwald and Rita Stumpp as well as the Korean teacher Um Young-Sun who were found murdered a day after the kidnapping last year: “They will have to live through it all again now.” The next thing gave us goose bumps, it is so out of this world: Even for the kidnappers, who have already murdered three of their victims, prayers are offered: “Lord our God, you have all men in your hand and you love them all. Therefore we also pray for the kidnappers.” It is probably this incredible faith in God which has carried these people through the past eleven months, and which now lets them go their separate ways looking peaceful and relaxed. In a week they will meet again, and they don’t give up hope that they will then hear good news about Johannes, Sabine, Tony, and little Simon.”

The news they have now received are not good news, as we humans measure goodness. But their faith will carry them, and at least the uncertainty has come to an end.

Let us remember the girls, as well as their relatives in prayer: Gottfried and Ruth Hentschel, Johannes Hentschel’s parents, as well as Sabine Hentschel’s brother Pastor Reinhard Pötschke of the Radebeul Evangelical Free Church in Saxony, Germany. And as Reinhard Pötschke reminds us, let us pray for the families of the earlier victims, who will now live through all this again.

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