‘Word From Lord’ Told Jacobsen of Impending Release

While in solitary confinement because his captors wrongly believed he had tried to send a coded message to the United States, former hostage David P. Jacobsen received a spiritual message that he would soon be released unharmed, Jacobsen said Sunday.

“During that period of time, without sounding mystical, I did get a word from the Lord that I was going to be released . . . in early November. I just knew it,” he told worshipers Sunday from the altar of a Garden Grove church.

Jacobsen, appearing at two packed Sunday morning services at the Crystal Cathedral with his sons, Eric and Paul, provided a glimpse into his 17 months of captivity in the hands of Shia Muslims in Beirut.

The 55-year-old hospital administrator addressed two packed houses of worshipers Sunday, about 6,000 of them, wearing small yellow ribbons on their lapels. He told them his 531 days as a hostage had felt “like being a rabbit in a cage.”

He told of having a hand and foot chained for the first six weeks following his kidnaping on May 28, 1985.

For a few more weeks, only a foot was shackled. After that, Jacobsen said, he was not bound during the remaining 14 months of his captivity. Only once, he said, was he punished again--in the two-week period of solitary confinement in late September.

Jacobsen said he was punished when his captors saw a broadcast of a videotape they had produced in which the hostage urged President Reagan to negotiate for his release and that of other American hostages. A television network, which he did not identify, wrongly speculated that Jacobsen was trying to send a surreptitious message to the United States in the videotaped appeal.

He said his captors took away his Bible during part of the time he was in solitary confinement. It was then, he said, that he received an unmistakable message from God of his impending release.

Released After 531 Days

After 531 days in captivity, Jacobsen was released on a Beirut street at 7 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 2. He returned home to Huntington Beach on Nov. 9.

The two celebrations were dedicated to him and the other American hostages. All the trees outside the cathedral were adorned with large yellow ribbons. On the pulpit of the expansive cathedral, five American flags draped in yellow ribbons were displayed in honor of five remaining American hostages in Lebanon.

After the services, Jacobsen departed Los Angeles International Airport for London, where he will join former hostages Father Lawrence M. Jenco, a Catholic priest, and the Rev. Benjamin Weir, a Presbyterian minister.

The three will meet with Terry Waite, the special envoy of the Anglican Church who was instrumental in negotiating the release of the three Americans.

Jacobsen, who is not expected to return to Southern California until Friday, will seek to help in negotiations for the release of the remaining American hostages.

Still Held Captive

Two fellow hostages of the three freed men, Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson and Thomas Sutherland, acting dean of the agriculture school at American University, are still held captive in Lebanon, along with three other Americans kidnaped during the last two months.

Earlier at the Crystal Cathedral, Jacobsen said he and four fellow hostages had maintained their faith by conducting religious services twice daily in their small shared room, where they slept on foam rubber pads. He said they had named their informal temple “The Church of the Locked Door.”

“We have a vow that when the last man is released, we will have one more service and then close forever the door of The Church of the Locked Door,” he said.

Jacobsen made his remarks in two informal interviews with Dr. Robert Schuller, pastor of Crystal Cathedral, who opened the services by thundering: “David Jacobsen, welcome home. This is the day the Lord has made!”

Although he was not a member of the Crystal Cathedral congregation, Jacobsen had attended services there before he went to Lebanon to become administrator of the American University Hospital in that war-torn Middle East country.

His 28-year-old son Paul of Rialto read biblical passages from Psalm 27, one of his father’s favorites. One of the key passages--”I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”--was one that the elder Jacobsen recited constantly during his captivity.

Eldest son Eric, 30, of Huntington Beach sang “When the Word Comes,” a song he co-wrote with his brother last year to draw attention to the plight of the American hostages.

Despite his awareness of the obvious dangers of living and working in Beirut, the former hostage also said he had never feared for his life, not before or after his kidnaping.

‘A Call From God’

“I guess there was a call from God to go over there and do something,” he explained.

He said he was convinced to take the job in Beirut after a conversation with a Lebanese woman while Jacobsen was on an exploratory trip to Lebanon.

“She told me, ‘There is no hope for our children until the first American returns.’ That touched me and I had to go back to show the people of Lebanon that they had not been abandoned,” he said.

Jacobsen presented Schuller with two silver bracelets inscribed with the names of Anderson and Sutherland and the dates they were taken hostage. And he vowed to continue all efforts to have them freed, along with Frank Herbert Reed, Joseph James Cicippio and Edward Austin Tracy, three Americans kidnaped by other groups in Beirut during the last two months.

“Every waking moment I have is to work to get the other hostages out,” he said.