The Lord 'brought me back from captivity'

Former hostage visits Upper Room

By JEANETTE PINKSTON

"WHILE I was kidnapped, you were in captivity here praying for me until my release. Because of your tears and prayers, the Lord has brought me back," the Rev Tongkhojang Lunkim told worshipers in the Upper Room Chapel recently.


The Rev Lunkim, publications coordinator for four editions of the Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide in northeast India, was captured on Jan 16 last year by a group of rebels called the Kuki Liberation Army. Held in solitary confinement for 61 days, he was released in mid-March 2006.


"I am alive. It is me," the Rev Lunkim, 87, told the staff of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship during the weekly chapel service. Gesturing towards the carved picture of The Last Supper in the front of the Upper Room chapel, he recalled first seeing it when he spoke there in 1980.


As a captive "I prayed to God to let me see it one more time, and here I am, standing before you today".


The Rev Lunkim came to Nashville to visit the Upper Room staff and to thank personally those who prayed for him while he was a hostage.


While in captivity, he said there was nothing to do but read the Bible and meditate. He said the boy who arrested him was one of his own people. "They sent him to kill me, but he could not pull the trigger." The Rev Lunkim was kept in a tiny cabin about the size of his small-frame body.


He suspects he was kidnapped because of his work either as a human rights activist or as a Christian. - United Methodist News Service.

Jeanette Pinkston is Media Relations Coordinator for the General Board of Discipleship in Nashville, Tennessee.