On 7 March the Free Methodist Church USA announced the release of its kidnapped missionary in Nigeria, Phyllis Sortor.
In a statement signed on behalf of the Board of Bishops of the church, David W. Kendall said 71-year-old Sortor was released by her captors on Friday evening, 6 March. He said armed gunmen abducted Sortor on 23 February from Hope Academy school in Emi-Oworo village in the central Nigerian state of Kogi.
Was there a ransom?
Stating that Sortor was released into the care of authorities and Free Methodist Church leaders, Kendall thanked all in Nigeria and in the United States for efforts to secure her release. He did not state whether the church or Nigerian authorities paid a ransom.
‘As a matter of sound policy, and to help protect the many, many people who helped secure Phyllis’s freedom, we will have no comment concerning the efforts that were undertaken to secure her release’, he said. ‘Please continue to pray for Phyllis as she processes the ordeal she has faced.’
Missionary kid
Sortor, born to Free Methodist missionaries Victor and Susan Macy, spent her childhood in Mozambique, according to the statement. After living many of her adult years in Seattle, Washington, she and her husband, Jim, relocated to Rwanda, where they ministered for nearly six years, Kendall said.
The couple returned to Africa in 2005, this time serving in Nigeria. She was instrumental in establishing schools in Kogi state for the children of Fulani herdsmen, and in instituting grazing projects as one solution to long-term conflicts between Nigerian farmers and Fulani herdsmen.
Sortor faced security challenges but never gave up serving in the mission field. She recently said: ‘Heaven is for real! There is no guarantee in life; no safe place – other than that place we find ourselves when our full faith and trust is in God!’
