Ruth took her hand. “Have you felt the Lord's presence? I know He's grieved with your pain, and I sense that you are very dear to His heart.”
Betty was a little embarrassed by Ruth's words, but she nodded. “He's been with me every step of the way. He's answered my prayers for encouragement, sometimes within minutes. He's led me through the guilt, through a lot of the fear, and now it's just come down to a matter of patience.” Betty studied her hands for a moment. “There's just one prayer He doesn't seem to answer, and of course that's the one that matters the most. It's become very hard for me to believe the waiting will really be over someday.” Ruth smiled warmly at Betty. “I'm glad you're able to be honest with yourself. And I'm really glad you're going to be sharing your story with these women. There are many kinds of captivity, you know.”
Betty was a little puzzled. “What other kinds of captivity are you talking about, Ruth?”
“Well, of course there are the obvious things like alcohol, drugs, and other addictive habits. But people are also held hostage by irreconcilable marriages. By overbearing parents and wayward children. By financial misfortunes. By chronic depression. By loneliness and sickness and guilt and grief.”
“So you see Jon's captivity as a sort of real-life parable?” “Exactly. And as you go through the process of praying and waiting for God to deliver Jon, you can help teach the rest of us how to pray for ourselves and our loved ones.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“The world is full of hostages, Betty. Their chains and blindfolds may be invisible, but there are people everywhere who are immobilized and unable to find their way. Their lives are shattered and their hearts are broken. The Lord wants to set them free. And He wants to use our love and prayers to get the job done.”
When Ruth got up to speak, she began by reading from Isaiah 61. “These are some of the first words Jesus spoke in His public ministry,” she explained to her audience. “And since we are supposed to be doing His work in this world, they apply to every one of us.”
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners . . .
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
Instead of their shame, my people will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace, they will rejoice in their inheritance;
and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs.
“Betty, Ricky Simms is on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”
Betty made a face and mouthed, “About what?” then she reached across Joyce's desk for the receiver.
Joyce shrugged and smiled.
The Texas twang was unmistakable. “Hello there, Elisabeth. We were just talking about you and wondering if you'd like to appear on our broadcast again. We have access to your boyfriend's videotape, and I think we could put together a dynamite interview. Maybe we can raise some more money for your little ministry there. We've got millions of viewers, you know.”
Betty rolled her eyes.
I don't believe I'm hearing this.
“Thank you, Mr. Simms, but I'm afraid I can't possibly leave here at the moment. I've got to make a trip overseas in a couple of weeks, and it just wouldn't work,”
“But you're such a pretty girl, and it's a chance for you to be on television again.” Simms apparently thought an appeal to her vanity would prevail.
“I'm sorry, it's just impossible.”
“Well, what if we sent a crew out your way? We could do a remote interview.”
He's starting to sound desperate. I wonder what he's up to.
“Mr. Simms, how did you get the videotape, anyway?”
You paid big bucks for it, didn't you?
She could almost see the sparkling smile on the other end of the phone. “We have our ways. You know we're very well connected with the news agencies, Elisabeth. Would you be willing to do a remote interview?”
“No, sorry. I'm not doing interviews for anybody now.”
“How much do you want?”
Good grief.
“Look, I don't want anything. I'm just not available for interviews.”
Especially with you.
“It could be a very powerful broadcast, Ms. Casey.” Irritation registered in his usually well-controlled voice.
“Well, I'm sure you can find another way to use the videotape. I'm just not available. Sorry. Thanks for thinking of me anyway.” She all but slammed the handset down.
“Joyce, what an operator that man is! Last time, he promised me half a million dollars, made me look like a blubbering idiot on television, and now he has the gall to ask me to come back! I don't believe it!”
Joyce smiled at Betty and shook her head. “Do you really think he was dishonest?”
Betty bristled. “What else would you call it?”
“I don't know, Betty. The Lord said we aren't supposed to judge, so I guess I want to think the best of him.”
“The Lord also said we're not supposed to cast our pearls before swine!”
“Betty!” Joyce was appalled.
“Sorry, Joyce. You're a much nicer person than I am, that's all.”
Not a week later, Joyce called Betty at home in the evening. “I hate to tell you this, but you've got to turn to Channel 40.”
Betty flipped the dial. There was Elisabeth Casey again, sniffling and sobbing on camera. Was Ricky Simms replaying the same broadcast as before? No, worse. This time Jon's pitiful videotape was intercut with Betty's earlier interview footage. It looked for all the world as if Betty were viewing Jon for the very first time while seated in an English sitting room with Ricky Simms.
Before long, the torturous new “interview” was over, and the fund raising began in earnest. “You can help resolve the problems in the Middle East,” she heard Simms promise. “Just get out that checkbook of yours right now, while it's on your mind. That's right, find your pen and write âRicky Simms Ministries . . .'”
Betty clicked off the television, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She called Joyce back. “Can you believe this guy?”
“He certainly has a clever editor, doesn't he?”
Betty was flabbergasted. “Joyce, you drive me nuts. You could find something nice to say about Hitler. I swear you could!”
For lack of anything further to say, they both began laughing dementedly. “Did you write out your check yet, Joyce?”
“No, but I'm thinking about it.”
“That's it. I'm hanging up!”
Joyce was still giggling. “I'll see you tomorrow, Betty. Try not to be too angry with me. It's just that Ricky Simms seems like such a nice man.”
“Don't they all!”
The time was drawing close for Betty's trip. Two days before her departure, she called Mike Brody at his office. He sounded busy and rather distant.
“Anything new, Mike?”
“Not a thing.”
“Well, I just wanted to let you know I'm leaving for Uganda on Wednesday.”
“Have a good trip.”
“Do you expect anything to happen in the next ten days?”
“Anything can happen, but no, I don't have anything to tell you.”
What's his problem? Maybe someone's in the office with him.
“Thanks, Mike.”
“Take care.”
She hung up thoughtfully. He sounded like a different person and his attitude made her feel a little insecure. One of the reasons she'd resigned herself to the Uganda trip was that she'd been clinging to the idea that Mike would somehow get word to her if anything happened in Lebanon. Now she wasn't so sure. Had she offended him? Or was he just having a bad day?
Men,
she sighed.
I'll never understand men.
Betty continued her preparations with an ear to the news. For once she almost hoped there wouldn't be any.
That's pretty sad,
she told herself,
to hope Jon's release fits into my travel plans.
On Wednesday, her departure day, the phone started ringing early in the morning. The first call came from a
Boston Globe
reporter. “How do you feel about the latest news of an imminent hostage release?”
“I haven't heard anything about it.”
“There are at least two sources for the story this time, and they are saying a hostage will be released in Beirut within seventy-two hours. Any comment?”
“I pray that it's true. That's all I can say.”
“Any idea what might be behind this release?”
“I don't know anything about it.”
“Any comment about the Bush administration's policy with regard to kidnappers and hostages?”
“No comment.”
Betty hung up. Her heart was beating far too fast. She felt dizzy and faint. Despite the steady strengthening of her faith, some symptoms of her hypochondria had recurred in the past few weeks. Would life ever be normal and happy again? She tried to put everything out of her mind except her trip preparations.
Passport. Tickets. Converter plugs. Chloroquine . . .
She took a moment to call her father. “Daddy? Hi. How are you?”
“Freezing to death. I'm trying to keep a fire going.”
Betty decided not to inquire about the indoor temperature of Harold Fuller's mobile home. “Well, I'm about to leave for Africa, and wouldn't you know it, there's another hostage-release rumor.”
“I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. It's probably just another false alarm.”
“But what if it isn't?”
“Well, I guess you'll have to cross that bridge when you get to it.”
You're a profound man, Daddy.
“Keep me in prayer while I'm gone, will you? I don't want to get sickâthat's the last thing I need.”
“I pray for you every day. Just relax. You'll make yourself sick if you keep worrying. Read Philippians 4.”
“Right. Philippians 4. Look, I'll call you when I get back. Bye, Daddy.”
OMI was sending two enormous suitcases to Uganda with Betty, and she had to make sure they got all the way to Entebbe along with her own luggage. Jim helped her check her baggage onto the Pam Am flight to Frankfurt. She would have a six-hour layover there and then fly on to Nairobi. Ten hours later, she would somehow get herself and all the luggage aboard a Kenya Airlines flight to Entebbe. The entire trip, door to door, would be almost thirty hours long.
She shoved her flight bag under the seat, belted herself into the big 747, and settled in for the duration. The flight was delayed almost forty-five minutes, and before long some of the passengers were expressing their annoyance. Not Betty.
I might as well be here as wandering around the Frankfurt airport,
she told herself.
At least I'm comfortable.
All at once unexpected tears burned in her eyes. With the jetway removed and the plane waiting on the runway, Betty felt completely cut off from Jon. There would be no news, no phone, no word of any kind for nearly two weeks. Was she somehow betraying him by leaving home? Why did a release rumor have to hit the wire services the very day she was leaving?
Her heart began to pound in her ears, but it was quickly drowned out by the roar of the engines. At long last the big aircraft lumbered down the runway and laboriously lifted itself into the sky. The landing gear thudded into place.
Betty was on her way back to Africa.
She sat scribbling in a notebook in the coffee shop at Frankfurt's immense international airport. Betty had hardly slept on the eleven-hour flight, and now she was trying to keep herself awake by writing a poem.
During the course of the journey she had tried to think optimistic thoughts, and had found herself contemplating the joy Jon had brought to her life. True, her times away from him had been marred by insecurity and haunted by ghosts of past rejection. But never before had she experienced such continuing happiness. Perhaps it wouldn't be long before that happiness returned. She smiled as she wrote,
Hello, Painâold, familiarâhere you are again.
When I so welcomed Joy to come, to enter in,
The door was left unlocked, and in you came,
Bearing your brutal tools, your cruel game
Of tortured thoughts and fears; and yet I see
That you have lost some power over me.
For Joy has brought sweet music, and to my delight
Love, Laughter, and the Hope of wrongs made right.
So, though you slash and stab,
and though I ache and sting,
I stand erect. And as I bleed I sing!
Yes, it was just the way she felt. Even with all the pain, there was immeasurable joy in knowing someone as wonderful as Jon loved her. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she belonged to someone, belonged
with
someone. Betty copied the verse over one last time, determined that Jon would see it some day. After she wadded up the several rough drafts, she stood up to stretch her legs.
As she lazily glanced around the bustling crowds outside the restaurant, she suddenly caught her breath.
Is that Mike Brody?
Betty squinted across the building. Three well-groomed men in business suits were walking toward the coffee shop in her direction. They were engrossed in conversation, not looking her way at all. The longer she stared, the more convinced she was that the man on the left was, indeed, her friend Mike.
What's he doing here? Did I tell him I was going through Frankfurt on my way to Africa? I can't remember.
The men continued walking toward her and finally moved out of sight as they got into the line for food and drinks. Betty tried to decide what to do. Should she make herself scarce before Mike saw her? Would he want her to speak to him or not? He had been very cold to her on the phone Monday morning.