American missionary Josh Sullivan is sharing his testimony of how God rescued him after he was kidnapped in South Africa earlier this year.
“I want to begin by thanking God for delivering me from what was undoubtedly the worst experience of our life,” Sullivan wrote in a post on Facebook. “I also want to thank him for delivering me from my sin 28 years ago when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Saviour. Because of my personal relationship with Jesus, He gave me the peace I needed to get through.”
The 34-year-old pastor from Tennessee was abducted while preaching a sermon at Fellowship Baptist Church in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. After five days in captivity at a safe house, Sullivan was freed by the Hawks, a South African police unit, in what they described as a “high-intensity shoot-out” which killed three suspects.
Sullivan and his wife, Meagan, moved to South Africa as missionaries in 2018. The couple have been studying Xhosa, the most widely-spoken language of the Eastern Cape, with the view to planting a Xhosa-language church. They have four children and have “taken in two Xhosa children.”
The motive for the kidnapping is still unclear. However, kidnappings in South Africa have tripled in the last ten years, many for the purposes of extortion.
“I am deeply grateful to the thousands of people who prayed for me while I was in captivity. It was because of these prayers that God performed a miracle a few nights ago…” Sullivan said. “As we begin the difficult process of healing and moving forward, we kindly ask for privacy during this time. I have a miraculous story to share, and I look forward to telling it when the time is right.”
