We Felt God’s Strengthening Aid

AS TOLD BY ESTHER GAITÁN

“We have kidnapped your mother. Do not try to call the police. Just wait for our call early tomorrow morning.”

MY YOUNGER sister received this call about our mother, Esther, on a Tuesday last year. My husband, Alfredo, and I had just returned from a meeting at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses when I learned about the call. By the time we got to my parents’ home in Mexico City, our relatives were already there. My younger sister and brother were inconsolable, and Mother’s sisters were in tears.

My father and older brother were away on a business trip. After speaking to them by phone, we all agreed that it would be best to inform the police. All through that distressing night, we prayed for help. We clearly felt that God was giving us “power beyond what is normal.”​—2 Corinthians 4:7.

The next morning I was the one who answered the kidnappers’ call. Although very nervous, I was able to speak calmly. The kidnapper wanted to talk to my father, but I told him that he was out of town. Then the man said that they would wait until Father arrived to begin negotiations. He warned me that if we didn’t pay a huge sum of money, they would kill my mother.

The following day I again answered the telephone. Since I sounded calm in the face of his threats, the kidnapper asked: “Don’t you realize the gravity of the situation?”

“Of course,” I replied. “You kidnapped my mother. But we are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and we have full confidence that our God will  help us. And the Bible prepares us to endure these difficult times in which we are living.”

“Yes. Yes. I know all that,” he replied. “Your mother says the same thing. She trusts her God and you a lot.” So we knew Mother was maintaining a firm faith, and this strengthened us.

Help to Endure

As the days passed, our fellow Christians telephoned us and sent cards and electronic messages. We continued to attend our meetings and participate in the preaching work. Daily reading the Bible and Bible literature also comforted us. Above all, prayer gave us “the peace of God.”​—Philippians 4:6, 7.

One of the police officers commented: “During the nine years I have been in the department, I have seen the despair of many families, but you are different. You display great tranquillity. I am sure that it is because of the God you worship.”

We showed him the December 22, 1999, issue of Awake! magazine, with the cover series “Kidnapping​—Why a Global Threat,” which we had reviewed. He read it and asked for more copies, saying he would like to get to know Jehovah’s Witnesses better.

Finally, after 15 days of negotiations, the kidnappers released my mother. She was well, although she had been kept isolated in a small room, chained by her foot. Yet, she had been treated with respect and had been given the medication she customarily took for diabetes and high blood pressure.

Mother described how she coped so remarkably well. “In the beginning,” she admitted, “I was very frightened; but I began to pray to Jehovah, and he did not allow me to despair. I never felt alone within those four walls. I discovered how real Jehovah was to me; he never abandoned me. I asked him to help me show the fruitage of his spirit​—above all, patience.

“Thanks to God’s help, I never cried or panicked. I spent the days recalling all the Bible verses that I knew, as well as singing our Kingdom songs out loud. Sometimes I imagined that I was at my Christian meetings, and I mentally participated in them. I also imagined preaching to people and conducting Bible studies. My mind was so involved with these things that time passed quickly.

“I even had a chance to give a witness about my faith to the kidnappers. Every time one of them brought me food, I preached to him, even though I was blindfolded. For example, once I told the kidnapper that the Bible foretold the difficult times in which we live and that I understood that they must have had a great need for money. I commented that Jehovah God has absolute power but that he never abuses it. Then I asked that they please not abuse their power over me but that they treat me with fairness.

“The kidnapper listened to me and told me not to worry, that they would not harm me. I am grateful to Jehovah for sustaining me in such difficult moments, and I am more resolved than ever to continue serving him as a regular pioneer [full-time evangelizer] as long as I am able.”

Without a doubt, this trial drew Mother closer to Jehovah, as it did all of us. We lack the words with which to express our gratitude that Mother is home again. It comforts us to know that under God’s Kingdom these outrages will no longer exist. Meanwhile, my family and I can bear witness to the truth of the words of the Bible psalmist: “Many are the calamities of the righteous one, but out of them all Jehovah delivers him.”​—Psalm 34:19.