The weekend dinner with an old acquaintance brought back memories of our first meeting, back when he and three others were imprisoned in Morocco. It was 1982, a time when our summer teams were sent out from the Heidebeek training community, where I served as a leader, to various locations across Europe and North Africa for evangelistic missions.
Among the team was Paul de Kloe, a 23-year-old teacher who had cycled from the Netherlands to join a group in southern Spain before crossing over to Morocco. His intention was to merge a holiday camp experience with evangelistic outreach to the local populace. During their time at a camp in Fez, Paul and his teammates formed friendships with some locals who displayed a genuine interest in the Bible. One afternoon, he offered a young man a copy of the Gospel of John.
The following morning, however, the team awoke to find their camp surrounded by police, who had come to arrest them. Paul and his companion Peter were taken into custody alongside common criminals, while the two women, Anneke and Joke, ended up in a shared cell with other female prisoners. After two weeks, a Moroccan court sentenced Paul to two years in prison for distributing Christian literature without permission, mistakenly believing that he was the leader of the group due to his tall stature. The others were released, but Paul faced a harsh reality.
While Morocco allowed freedom of worship for existing Christians, proselytizing among Muslims was (and continues to be) severely restricted. I vividly recall the sleepless nights I spent as the leader of Heidebeek, first worrying about the four individuals crammed in a prison cell and then about Paul, who would endure two years under such conditions.
Following a visit from Paul’s parents to my wife and me at Heidebeek, his father took it upon himself to travel to Morocco to see his son. A letter-writing campaign was quickly organized to appeal to the Dutch government, the embassy, and even Queen Beatrix. Ultimately, this intervention led to Paul's release after five weeks behind bars.
This incident was not the first time a member of Youth With A Mission (YWAM) had been imprisoned. In 1973, two young women faced imprisonment and threats to their lives in communist Albania, only to be unexpectedly released in a dramatic story recounted in Reona Peterson Joly's book, _Tomorrow You Die_. A year after Paul’s arrest in Morocco, several members of a discipleship school from Heidebeek on a mission in Lebanon were kidnapped at gunpoint, along with a Swiss doctor, Josianne André. Likely, local militants had attempted a fundraising endeavor, which was common in the area during the 1980s, and the hostages were released after three days of anguish for their families and us as mission leaders.
Daily Struggles and Resilience
In 1998, while serving as the European director, I received an urgent phone call from our YWAM leader in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. A young Swedish couple, both aged 22, had left a church in Makhachkala, Dagestan, when masked men forced them into a vehicle and abducted them, taking them to Chechnya. Daniel and Paulina Brolin became the latest victims in the region's lucrative kidnapping industry. Upon my arrival in Stockholm with an international lawyer to meet with the family, church leaders, and government contacts, their case was the second leading story on the evening news.
Their book, _165 dagar: Ett kidnappningsdrama_ (165 Days: A Kidnapping Drama), though available only in Swedish, powerfully narrates the intensity of their ordeal and serves as a testament to Christian faith under extreme pressure. Daniel and Paulina described the monotony and terror of spending twenty-three weeks in a dark, moldy basement, with minimal exposure to sunlight, unsanitary conditions, and scarce food, all while grappling with the constant uncertainty of whether they would be killed. The Scriptures, prayer, hymns, and memorized Bible verses became their daily sustenance, teaching them to survive one day at a time. In subsequent interviews, they expressed how this experience profoundly changed their perspective on life, leading them to cherish each day and dedicate their lives to serving God. Eventually, they resumed their mission work abroad, this time in Thailand, with their four children.
Last month in Amsterdam, I met with Els for the first time since her husband, Jeff Woodke, an American humanitarian worker with YWAM, was released after spending six and a half years in captivity with Al-Qaeda-linked extremists in Niger. Jeff and his Dutch wife had devoted over 25 years to serving some of the poorest communities in Niger, working on schools, water projects, and agricultural initiatives. However, on October 14, 2016, he was abducted by a group of jihadists in Abalak, Niger. He was taken to Mali, where he endured severe beatings, was chained for prolonged periods, denied adequate food and medical care, and was pressured to renounce his Christian faith in favor of Islam.
Yet, through it all, he clung to hope through prayer, the Scriptures, and the conviction that God had not forsaken him. Following a multinational effort involving the governments of the United States, Niger, and France, Woodke was unexpectedly freed in March 2023, reuniting with Els and his family to begin the long road to physical, emotional, and spiritual recovery. In his upcoming book, _All the Way Home_, he explores how suffering stripped him of everything except faith, hope, and love. Jeff writes candidly about the trauma and PTSD he experienced, but he also discusses themes of forgiveness, freedom, and the sustaining power of God's faithfulness, emphasizing the possibility of returning home not just physically, but also spiritually.
The New Normal?
For us in the West, such stories are not typical of church life. However, tales of kidnapping and imprisonment recur throughout both biblical accounts and the history of the Church. Consider figures like Joseph, Jeremiah, Daniel, John the Baptist, Jesus himself, and Paul. Patrick was trafficked to Ireland at the age of 16, later returning as a missionary. Historical figures like Jan Hus, Thomas Cranmer, William Tyndale, and John Bunyan faced imprisonment and death for the gospel, as did Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie ten Boom, and Richard Wurmbrand in the last century. Yet, for millions of believers, detention, imprisonment, abduction, torture, and even martyrdom are part of daily life.
According to Open Doors, around 388 million Christians—one in seven worldwide—experience high levels of persecution and discrimination due to their faith. Last year, seven out of ten Christians killed globally were in Nigeria, the epicenter of lethal violence against Christians. India has the highest number of Christian detentions, frequently under laws against conversion. Thousands of believers have been arrested or imprisoned in India for alleged illegal evangelism. In countries like North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, China, and certain regions of Central Asia, many Christians have spent years in prison. In some parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, however, the threat is not imprisonment but abduction or murder. Increasingly, the ordinary Christian experience is no longer characterized by the comfort of Western churches, but rather by believers worshiping under pressure. The exhortation from Hebrews 13:3 remains just as relevant today as it was when it was penned: 'Remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison.'
As reported by protestantedigital.com.
