When Prayers Are Answered

After two years of being held hostage deep in the Colombian rain forest by armed rebels, of being moved constantly, of his hair turning from brown to gray, American missionary Ray Rising is unharmed and free.

There was no ransom paid, though his captors had every intention of collecting one when they grabbed him.

Ultimately, they became convinced that their best move was simply to set Rising free.

Rising’s release June 17 was a huge relief not only to his family, friends and colleagues at Wycliffe Bible Translators--a nondenominational missionary group based in Huntington Beach dedicated to translating the Bible into every language--but to others in the rugged region of Colombia who have been the target of kidnappers.

There is still plenty of reason for concern: Two missionaries--Tim Van Dyke and Steve Welsh of Florida-based New Tribes Mission--were killed during the time Rising was held; three are still being held.

In a country seemingly numbed by years of political violence and one of the world’s highest kidnapping rates, the deaths of the missionaries triggered shock and concern among the Colombian people.

“This reaction was helpful because it sent a message to Ray’s captors that missionaries being killed while in captivity was not acceptable,” says Bob Klamser, 42, a former police negotiator from Ventura County who has become a specialist in missionary hostage cases.

Klamser was involved in the negotiations for Van Dyke and Welsh as well as for Rising, who was taken hostage March 31, 1994, outside the Lomalinda Center, a missionary compound near the city of Puerto Lleras where he lived with his family and other Wycliffe missionaries.

The center, which had 250 residents, was evacuated after Rising’s kidnapping; last February it was turned over to the Colombian government.

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Rising, 54, an expert in radio communications, spent three decades in South America, most of that time in Colombia. He worked for the Summer Institute of Linguistics, the field operation for Wycliffe, which has 5,000 translators and other personnel in 51 countries.

A ham radio enthusiast as a teenager in his home town of Baudette, Minn., Rising became interested in Wycliffe after reading a Reader’s Digest article about the organization and its need for electronics specialists.

“It seemed like a good way to use my talent and serve the Lord at the same time,” he says today.

Initially his job consisted of improving radio communications between remote missionary centers and their urban bases.

As he became fluent in Spanish and more familiar with the communities in which he served, he spent more time on civic and health concerns, encouraging children to continue their education, serving as a liaison between the people and town leaders, drilling wells and dispensing medications. “I’ve even pulled some teeth,” Rising says.

On the day of his abduction, he was distributing food in poor neighborhoods of Puerto Lleras. Only a dirt road connects the community to Bogota 100 miles to the northwest.

Rising is not certain why he was singled out to be taken hostage, but, in a telephone interview this month from Wycliffe offices in Waxhaw, N.C., he said he believes it was for the sole purpose of collecting a ransom.

Wycliffe, Klamser and Rising all declined comment on the identity of the group responsible for the abductions.

In Colombia, well-organized leftist guerrillas have battled the government for decades--including its U.S.-backed anti-drug campaigns. They are known to fund their causes through kidnappings--asking for multimillion-dollar ransoms in high-profile cases--and by protecting drug operations.

The rebel groups are composed of hundreds of smaller, autonomous fronts, which has made the negotiating process very complex, Klamser says.

“Just because we’ve gone through this whole process with one front does not mean the others will get the idea. With each hostage situation, we have to begin the entire process all over again,” he says.

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In a highly publicized 1981 case, Charles Bitterman of the Summer Institute of Linguistics was kidnapped and killed by Colombian rebels who accused the organization of having ties to the CIA.

Rising says that he has no connections to the CIA and that his captors could have easily checked with independent sources to confirm that. Had they believed there was a connection, he says, “they would not have released me.”

It was after Bitterman’s death that Klamser, who had handled crisis negotiations for the Simi Valley Police Department, first took an interest in the missionary hostage cases.

“Bitterman’s case was a wake-up call for the missionary organizations--many of them began to think about this possibility,” Klamser says.

It was not just in Colombia that the missionary groups found themselves being criticized as agents of U.S. interests and the target of politically motivated groups.

In 1986, Klamser negotiated the release of seven missionaries from various organizations who were taken hostage in Africa. That case, which he handled while on leave from his police job, was the first of many that were resolved successfully. In all, he has negotiated 32 cases, many with multiple hostages. The Van Dyke / Welsh negotiation was the only one that ended unsuccessfully.

Klamser, who retired from the Simi Valley force two years ago at the rank of detective lieutenant, formed a nonprofit group, Crisis Consulting International, to support the missionary groups. Based in Ventura County, the group is staffed with eight volunteers. It is supported primarily by donations and some fee-based consulting work; it does not charge for its hostage negotiations.

Klamser says that being able to convince hostage-takers that holding missionaries makes no political point has been key to negotiations. The other key: a firm decision to never pay ransom.

Often, Klamser says, to hostage-takers “missionaries look like any other Western businessman--they live in nice houses, have running water, just like rich oil company employees do. But missionaries are a different kind of hostage. The challenge is convincing [the guerrillas] of this.”

In Rising’s case, the people of Puerto Lleras came on their own to his defense. He was very well-known in the community and there was outrage over his kidnapping, Klamser says.

“The message was that he was not some faceless symbol of America, he was a religious man motivated by his love for God and his love for the Colombian people. More than 60 letters were written to the kidnappers by young children who knew Ray; then people in the community helped deliver those letters to the guerrillas.”

Rising says he was not expecting trouble before his abduction, but he did have a sense of unease. About six weeks earlier he felt inclined to instruct his elder son, Ray Jr., then 25, to take care of his mother and 18-year-old brother Rollin in the event something were to happen to him.

When he was kidnapped, his family knew immediately something was wrong, but it was more than two months before Rising’s wife, Doris, and sons heard news of him.

“That was a scary time for all of us,” says Arthur Lightbody, spokesman for Wycliffe. “We didn’t know if he was alive, or had been killed and his body dragged off somewhere.”

Communication finally came in the form of a ransom letter from his captors, and a letter written by Rising stating that he was being treated well.

After the initial ransom letter, negotiations for Rising’s release continued until October 1994, when contact was cut off by the captors.

A crisis came near the end of 1994 when a seemingly reliable source said he had absolute proof that Rising was dead, Klamser says. It took some time to get reconfirmation that Rising was indeed alive.

There was never any face to face negotiating for Rising’s release; communication was by radio and letters or notes.

When it became clear that Rising was not going to be released quickly, keeping interest alive in his case became a priority for his family and friends.

Continuing communications from the family and community were essential to the negotiation process, say those involved.

In February of 1995, a flier was distributed throughout the region with a plea from Rising’s mother, Clarice Stelling, for the safe return of her son.

Doris Rising, who eventually returned to the United States, made several trips to Colombia during her husband’s captivity, and went on local radio in December 1994 to appeal for his release. Her husband heard the broadcast.

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Although Rising went through very difficult periods of fear and loneliness while in captivity, he says he never lost hope that he would eventually be freed.

“I had a promise from God that I would be liberated,” he says. “In the fullness of time, God kept his promise.”

After his release, Rising spent a couple of days in Bogota before flying to Charlotte, N.C., to be reunited with his family.

In addition to his hair turning gray while in captivity, Rising lost 20 pounds. He needs new glasses and some dental work, but says he is otherwise healthy. He intends to continue working with Wycliffe, but will remain in the United States.

Klamser, meanwhile, is continuing negotiations with the rebels for the release of the three missionaries still held in Colombia.