Death threats against 17 kidnapped missionaries in Haiti stir up memories of our similar experience in Colombia

No doubt you’ve been following the story of 17 kidnapped missionaries in Haiti. First, their captors demanded $17 million ransom, and now they’re threatening to kill the missionaries.

 

WOW.

That stirs up horrific memories for us

and for our colleagues and friends—

all the people we worked with in Colombia:

memories of the kidnapping and murder 

of Chet Bitterman.

 

I wrote about it in my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

  

Glenny Gardner was the first friend my son made when we arrived at our remote outpost in central Colombia, and he remained a constant friend and playmate. I wrote this early in my memoir:

 

“Marxist guerrillas kidnapped Glenny’s brother-in-law, Chet Bitterman, and murdered him. His story spread throughout the Western world.. . . . (From Chapter 6, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir)

 

And Chet would not be our only friend guerrillas murdered.

 

For our family for three years, for our colleagues who worked there more than thirty years, for missionaries with other organizations—anti-American guerrillas were always lurking, sometimes face-to-face with us, sometimes in the shadows, but always stalking.

 

Let me tell you more about Chet.

 

One day during our third year there in Lomalinda, I heard someone call “knock-knock” at our back door. There stood a grinning Chet Bitterman.

 

He had arrived only recently, bringing with him Brenda, Glenny Gardner’s sister. By then she was all grown up, wife to Chet, mother to Anna, and trained in Bible translation.

 

Little did I know that one of God’s most set-apart servants had stepped into my porch that day.

 

Never could I, or anyone, have imagined that, in a few short months, God would use Chet’s kidnapping and murder to advance Bible translation and heal the long-standing strained relationship between the Colombian government and our organization.

 

Here’s how the story unfolded:

 

On January 19, 1981, seven masked, armed M-19 guerrillas kidnapped 28-year-old Chet Bitterman and threatened to kill him unless SIL left the country by February 19.

 

But our fellow missionaries had passed legislation stating they would not pay ransom or give in to blackmail or extortion. Our entire mission agency had the same policy, as did the Colombian government and other mission agencies because paying a ransom would encourage more kidnappings around the world.

 

Chet understood the need for the policy.

 

A year or two before his kidnapping,

he told his wife, Brenda, something

that would help her through that unspeakably painful time.

He had said, speaking of that legislation,

“You hate to hurt people,

but it'd be better to sacrifice a few lives if necessary

than give in to these jokers and encourage them to do it again.”

But, of course, Chet’s family and our administration wanted to save Chet’s life, so our director, Will Kindberg, contacted the U.S. Embassy saying that although SIL wouldn’t pay ransom or give in to demands to leave the country, he might consider negotiation.

 

The official arranged for an experienced negotiator to work with him but, on March 7, 1981, following seven weeks of intense talks, the M-19 shot Chet through the chest and left his body in a bus.

 

Will called Chet’s father in Pennsylvania who, despite his grief, said, “We are sure you did everything you could do. Do not feel you have failed. We know this is what God had planned for Chet.”

 

Before Chet and Brenda started their assignment in Colombia, Will had met with them in Dallas and Chet said something Will never forgot. “We are ready to do anything for God. Anything the Colombia Branch asks us to do. We are willing to go to the hardest place. If there is something no one else wants to do, we will take that assignment.”

 

After Chet died, Will wrote, “That statement was to come back to me with tremendous impact. And because I knew he meant it, I was better able to handle probably the most difficult situation I have ever had to face in my entire life.

 

“I still cry when I think of that conversation,” Will said. Recalling Chet’s willingness to take on a task no one else wanted to do, he said, “He and Brenda did just that, and were an example to all on how to do it.”

 

In an interview on Colombian radio,

Chet’s father said, “I don’t know what God plans to do

with the death of my son.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.”

 

Though perhaps no one heard God speak at that moment,

it was as if He reiterated what He had told Habakkuk:

 

“Look . . . and watch—and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something . . .

that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

(Habakkuk 1:5)

 

Chet’s father continued, “Chet had a great love for the Colombian people; he wanted to tell the [indigenous] about God.

 

“Now I’m hoping someone else will go in his place.”

 

And someone did.

 

Wanting to fill the gap Chet’s death created,

twice as many people applied to Wycliffe U.S.

compared to previous years, and the trend continued.

 

Chet’s friends and family buried him in Lomalinda’s cemetery. Tom Branks spoke of him in ways few could have—Tom has a gifted way with words. You can read his message in Called to Die: The Story of American Linguist Chet Bitterman Slain by Terrorists, by Steve Estes.

 

A Lomalinda kid, Jonathan Smoak, remembers:

 

[My brother] Thomas Smoak III, Ron Ravensbergen, and I dug his grave. I remember my mind wandering everywhere about death and sacrifice as we shoveled away in the hot afternoon sun.

 

But what I most remember is the sound of the first shovelfuls of dirt hitting the casket after his body was laid to rest. The deep thud of dirt on the simple casket seemed so loud and hollow. I got sick to my stomach when I heard it. It was the sound of finality.

 

Chet was a good friend, especially during afternoon soccer games, always smiling, always joking around, and then he was gone from this earth forever. That was the first time I had ever contemplated what I wanted to do with my life.

 

A year later, to demonstrate their forgiveness,

Chet’s parents flew to Meta,

the departamento (state) in which Lomalinda is located,

to deliver a gift, an ambulance to help locals,

especially the poor.

The Bittermans also assured the country’s people

that because of God’s help,

they felt no hatred toward them.

 

Those words impressed top-level government officials, as did the Bittermans’ generous gift, so much so that the event was a turning point. After meeting with Chet’s parents, Colombia’s President Turbay voiced his support of our work.

 

And, in a radical change after years of animosity, the nation’s press published positive stories on Chet’s parents, the ambulance, and our work.

 

“The guerrillas had intended to oust the [Bible] translators; instead they entrenched them. Almost a decade of negative press gave way to supportive editorials,” wrote Steve Estes in Called to Die.

 

After Chet’s death, Estes said, our personnel “basked in the effusive support that followed from President Turbay.”

 

In that way, God used Chet’s murder

to open the way for Bible translators

to continue their jobs throughout the nation.

 

What a shocking, wonderful turnaround for our work in Colombia!

 

Indeed, God did something we would not have believed,

even if we had been told ahead of time!

(Habakkuk 1:5)

 

But despite new support from the press and the government, our mission organization remained the target of guerrillas. During Chet’s captivity, a pipe bomb exploded at the home of one of the Bogotá-based families, and ongoing terrorist efforts hindered the work of translators in tribal areas.

 

And in 1994, guerrillas abducted our friend and colleague Ray Rising, and, as in Chet’s case, international news agencies covered Ray’s story, too. Unlike Chet’s case, Ray’s captors released him after 810 days. Denise Marie Siino penned his grueling experience in Guerrilla Hostage.

 

Nevertheless, those intrepid missionaries continued their work.

 

In 2004, former M-19 guerrilla Lucy Argüello Campo traveled to the U.S. to ask Chet’s family and missionary colleagues to forgive the M-19 for murdering Chet.

 

Although she joined the group after he died, she felt compelled to attempt reconciliation after becoming a Christian and reading Called to Die, and she did so in a tearful, moving series of meetings in the States. Chet’s friends and family assured Lucy of their forgiveness, and some even helped finance her trip.

 

At such desperate, heartbreaking times—kidnapping, murder of innocent people—we cry out to God, questioning His goodness and His care. We might even shake a fist at Him.

 

“How can You let this happen, God?”

 

But we must recognize that the way we view situations

might not be the same way God views them.

He can see the big picture, but we see only snippets.

 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are My ways higher than your ways

and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

(Isaiah 55:8-9)

 

All we can do is put our trust in God,

the Ruler of all,

the One who holds all things and all people

in His capable, loving hands.

 

We did so when Chet was kidnapped and murdered,

and now we do it again 

with those 17 missionaries in Haiti

facing a similar fate.

May God strengthen them for every moment

of every day and night, and may He

have mercy on them and their families.

We are trusting in You, our God,

with all our hearts,

and will lean not on our own understanding . . . .

Proverbs 3:5

 

Everyone knew they heard strangers approaching from the sky

 

Decades before our family arrived at that little missions center, Lomalinda, Marxists had influenced the Colombian government and a segment of society against Americans.

 

Cuba’s Fidel Castro and his brother, Raul, keen on violence and everything anti-American, had circulated propaganda, brought Colombian guerrillas to Cuba, trained them, offered aid and weapons, and sent them home to carry out a revolution.

 

Over the following decades, Marxist harassment against Americans (not just against missions organizations, but against American corporations and other interests, too), remained somewhat restrained.

 

Nevertheless, disinformation and misinformation against Americans circulated—sometimes truly bizarre accusations.

 

Hostility against Americans began to increase a couple of years before our family arrived in Colombia, and it would worsen. (Click on “We mean business. Get out or you’ll hear from us again.”)

 

Let me tell you about one incident.

 

Keep in mind that Lomalinda was a hushed place. At our missions center, we had no throngs of noisy, bustling humanity, no traffic jams, screeching brakes, honking horns or sirens, no factories or trains.

 

Oh, we did hear noises, mostly each other’s motorbikes, just before school started and offices opened in the morning, and again in the afternoon when school dismissed, and later when offices closed.

 

We recognized friends’ moto sounds and knew who was arriving at our back door.

 

We recognized the hum and rumble of our planes and could distinguish between the Evangel and the two Helio Couriers.

 

Other than that, our center was a still place.

 

And so, back in May 1974, two years before our family moved to Lomalinda, everyone knew they heard strangers approaching from the sky. That was the day the military helicopter arrived.

 

It circled overhead but, rather than landing at the hangar, it set down alongside the dining hall and commissary.

 

A swarm of anthropologists and armed forces jumped out, among them two generals and a colonel. At the same time, a Navy truck full of frogmen roared up the steep, winding hill where the helicopter had landed.

 

Forrest Zander, our director at that time, approached the major general in charge, who, bristling, ordered Forrest to gather his staff for a meeting, opened sealed orders, and announced: “You will open your doors for our inspection.” (Forrest Zander, “Invasion by Land, Sea and Air”)

 

Forrest complied.

 

In the Technical Studies Department, the investigators studied our linguistic files.

 

At the hangar, military officers demanded to see paperwork authorizing the use of planes and radios. They examined offices, filing cabinets, and the parts storeroom. They asked why the landing strip was so short. That was easy to answer. Since pilots used some of the world’s most dangerous airstrips—on precarious mountainsides or in dense, tangled jungle—planes were equipped, and pilots trained, to land on and take off from short strips.

 

The frogmen found their way to the lake and began searching for a uranium mine—for a long time some groups had suspected our organization of covert activities like mining uranium—a truly bizarre rumor.

 

Here’s how one of those outrageous rumors started: In Lomalinda’s pioneering days when everyone used a communal bathroom, the septic system clogged. A couple of men spent the day digging out waste and dumping it into fifty-gallon drums.

 

By the time they finished it was dark, but they kept working, loading the drums into a truck, driving to a pasture, and emptying them.

 

That should have been the end of the story, but soon the community faced accusations of mining uranium from the lake, storing it in drums, and flying it out at night in their planes. (Reggie McClendon, “Uranium from the Lake”)

 

Do you see how off-the-wall that accusation was?

 

Here’s another preposterous, laughable allegation: In Lomalinda’s early years, our missionaries had also been accused of plotting to launch missiles from three water storage tanks when the United States took over Colombia, using its three small planes and radio department in support of that effort. (Forrest Zander, “Invasion by Land, Sea and Air.”)

So, with the arrival of that helicopter and the frogmen, the government hoped to discover and expose our organization’s true reason for working in Colombia—or, rather, what they mistakenly surmised was our reason for working there.

 

Frogmen dragged the lake for several days, learning only that it held no uranium, no secrets of any kind.

 

The military’s other week-long investigation showed Lomalinda’s people owned no uranium mines or missile launchers, made no nighttime flights, and didn’t carry out hush-hush activities.

 

As a result, the Minister of Government stood up for our well-known global mission agency and charges were dropped.

 

Even so, in coming years, ongoing false accusations would threaten to bring work to a halt. (from Chapter 14, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

Looking back, it's clear to see

our times were in God's hands,

and that for another too-few years,

He would deliver us from the hands of our enemies,

from those who pursued us (Psalm 31:15).

Laughing at impossibilities

 

About a month into our new life in Lomalinda, I was only beginning to get acquainted with her people. I was clueless about the deep, enduring blessings God would give me through my new neighbors and colleagues.

 

In the coming months and years, God would use them to help me take baby steps toward walking by faith, not by sight. They would shape who I was to become and change me forever.

 

I would witness that these ordinary people trusted God—in very practical, specific, real-life ways. They demonstrated faith in action while, among many other things, they endured ongoing hostility from Marxist guerrillas.

 

Let me tell you how that hostility began.

 

In 1948, the assassination of a Colombian presidential candidate triggered an era known as La Violencia (The Violence), twelve years of mass murders, mobs, rioting, destruction, fires, and political conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives.

 

Participating in that unrest was a young Cuban student, Fidel Castro, at the National University of Bogotá. (Yes, Cuba’s leader, the Fidel Castro you’ve heard about for decades.)

 

After returning to Cuba, he and his brother, Raul, recognized La Violencia left Colombia ripe for a revolution like Cuba’s and began preaching Marxist/Leninist principles among Colombians.

 

Keen on violence and everything anti-American, Castro circulated propaganda, brought Colombian guerrillas to Cuba, trained them, offered aid and weapons, and sent them home to carry out their revolution.

 

La Violencia was also a time of hostility against evangélicos (Protestant Christians) and Roman Catholics, especially pastors and priests, some of whom were martyred for their faith. Churches were destroyed and burned. In addition, for years Roman Catholics had prevented most Protestant mission agencies from entering the country.

 

Given that, what Cameron Townsend dreamed up in 1956, eight years into La Violencia, seems absurd.

 

Founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators (which was to become the world’s foremost Bible translation organization) and SIL International (a scientific as well as faith-based organization) Cameron Townsend (Uncle Cam) came up with a wild idea—he wanted to start Bible translation work in Colombia.

 

Bible translation and more. Because the Bible tells us, many times, to care about people’s all-around well-being, Uncle Cam cared, too. In other Latin American countries, his mission agency had addressed spiritual, physical, and educational needs of minority groups and he wanted to do the same in Colombia.

 

To many people, that made no sense, given the hostility toward both Americans and Protestant Christians at the time, but plucky Uncle Cam stepped up, proving the words of what became known as Wycliffe’s theme song: “faith . . . laughs at impossibilities and shouts ‘It shall be done!’” (Apparently, that was his version of Charles Wesley’s “Faith, Mighty Faith.”)

 

He pressed on, just like in the past when he’d faced obstacles in other countries where he wanted to begin new work.

 

For years, he persisted, and he prayed, and as a result—surely this was God’s doing—in Guatemala, Uncle Cam met Colombia’s new Director of Indigenous Affairs and told him stories of the ways his colleagues helped native groups in other nations. God answered many prayers when the official asked, “How can I get you people to come to Colombia?”

 

Uncle Cam answered, “If we can have a contract with the government that will allow us to help the people physically, educationally, and spiritually by translating the Bible, we will come.”

 

With a signed contract in 1962, Bible translation began in Colombia (from Chapter 14, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir).

 

How is it possible that mere humans can

“laugh at impossibilities and cry ‘It shall be done!’”

—and then the impossible happens?

 

How is it that people pray

and God answers the way they want him to—

the way they tell him to?

 

When Jesus said,

“You can ask me for anything in my name,

and I will do it,”

did he mean we are the boss of him?

(See John 14:13-14.)

 

Let’s read the whole passage. Jesus said, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.”

 

The people at Got Questions urge this caution: “Some misapply this verse, thinking that saying ‘In Jesus’ name’ at the end of a prayer results in God always granting what we asked for. This is . . . treating the words ‘in Jesus’ name’ as a magic formula. This is absolutely unbiblical.”

 

They continue, “Praying in Jesus’ name means . . . praying according to the will of God. ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him (1 John 5:14-15).

 

“. . . Praying for things that are in agreement with God’s will is the essence of praying in Jesus’ name” (from “What does it mean to pray in Jesus’ name?).

 

The desires of our hearts and prayers need to be in accord with a very important phrase within Jesus’ words: “that God the Father would be glorified” (John 14:13-14).

 

To glorify God means

to recognize His holiness and greatness,

it means to give Him honor.

It means to acknowledge His authority in our lives.

It means to desire what He desires.

 

So, let’s get back to Uncle Cam. For six years, he prayed, he persisted, he laughed at impossibilities and shouted, “It shall be done!” and lo and behold, God opened wide the doors for Wycliffe Bible Translators to begin work in Colombia.

 

The takeaway for you and me is this:

Uncle Cam prayed according to God’s will.

He prayed for what would glorify God.

Uncle Cam’s heart wanted what God’s heart wanted.

And God was pleased to answer.

It was all so good.

 

Ah, but carrying out Bible translation in Colombia didn’t turn out to be a breeze.

 

Oh, no, it wasn’t.

 

Come back next week. I have so much more to tell you!

 

Learning from those willing to take knee-buckling, breath-stealing leaps of faith

 

Agreeing to apply to Wycliffe Bible Translators required me to take a scared-out-of-my-wits leap of faith.

 

Agreeing to move to South America took another hysterical, blind-eyed leap of faith.

 

Getting on that plane in Miami and flying into Bogotá—that required a brave-but-wild-eyed dive into the scary unknown future.

 

And then walking into the scene of, and hearing stories of, the Marxist-guerrilla bombing of our Bogotá facility that had occurred only days before—that plunged me into a terrifying reality. Dear God, what have we gotten ourselves into? Putting one foot in front of the other, and taking the next step, one foot in front of the other, required another sobbing, howling leap of faith.

 

Over the next three years I would witness those around me—my new neighbors and colleagues and friends—live their lives with ingenuity and patience and stubborn perseverance and hope.

 

They faced ongoing tests of faith. And every time, I witnessed their willingness to take knee-buckling, stomach-cramping, breath-stealing leaps of faith.

 

What I faced, in settling into Lomalinda,

was nothing compared to what many of them

had already faced

and would continue to face for decades.

 

It used to be, in the first half of my now-long lifetime, that Christians spoke of and wrote of dying to self and instead, living for God and His purposes and plans. Dying to self: setting aside our own hopes and dreams and plans and dedicating ourselves to God’s hopes and dreams and plans.

 

But in recent decades, I haven’t heard our Christian leaders and teachers calling us to die to self and instead to live for God. Perhaps it’s no longer a popular way for Christians to live. What a shame!

 

God gave me and my husband and our kids the great privilege of spending three years with a couple of hundred men and women and their kids who, over and over again, chose to die to self and instead, to live for God.

 

They didn’t talk about that much—I rarely heard anyone verbalizing that. No one strutted around with a holier-than-thou attitude. They just kept slogging along, trusting in God.

 

Taking a clear-eyed look at the challenges

and real dangers they faced,

recognizing the uncertainty of their wellbeing,

plunging forward into an unknown future,

they kept taking more mindboggling leaps of faith,

dying to themselves and placing God first.

 

Lomalinda’s people stayed faithful to the divine urgency

God had placed in their souls.

A number of them, some now well into their eighties,

 are still working on behalf of Colombia’s indigenous people,

still working to provide them with Scriptures

in their own languages.

 

They put their faith and deliberate trust in the Lord with all their heart, not relying on their own understanding, welcoming His grace and mercy, His strong hand of blessing to guide and hold them (Proverbs 3:5, Psalm 48:14, Psalm 139:10).

 

Theirs was, and still is, a glorious, sacred journey, 

a testament to the steadfastness of them all 

and to God’s love and faithfulness.

 

“Here is my mind—think through it to show me what love demands; here is my will—guide and direct all my words and actions; here is my heart—come and live in me. . . . Thank You, Lord, that with this commitment, I have died to myself. . . .” (Lloyd John Ogilvie, Silent Strength for My Life)

 

Part Two: Standing in front of a mirror and yelling at kids

Last week I asked, “Have you ever been standing in front of a mirror when you yelled at your kids?”

If you have, you were startled at what you saw. And ashamed. The things we do to our faces when we get mad and scream—well, they’re frightful. Mean. Ugly.

We should never, never inflict that on kids, yet that’s what my face looked like to our new little neighbor, Glenny, on our first day in Lomalinda.

You see, he had surprised me by darting into my kitchen and holding a snake within six inches of my face and hollering, “Ya wanna see a real, live boa constrictor?”

Somewhere deep in my brain, I connected “boa constrictor” with “danger” and I was so scared I couldn’t breathe.

I bent down and glowered into Glenny’s sweaty, freckled, beaming little face and—when I could finally gulp in air—I yelled, “No. Get out!” pointing toward the door.

I’ve never forgotten how his bright smiling face dimmed, he blinked, caught his breath, turned, and sprinted down the hall. (Click here to read about that.)

Immediately I knew I’d done a bad thing. I grabbed my camera and ran after him, calling out, “Wait, Glenny, let me take your picture!” 

For all these years, I’ve been heartsick for the memories Glenny must have of me yelling into his little face. I’m sure I looked cross and dreadful and horrid.

Here’s where Part Two of this story comes in.

A year ago, Dave and I were at our granddaughter’s track meet and I snapped a picture of her. Then I noticed a man to the right of her. I stepped closer—it was Glenn! Forty years had passed since I’d last seen him, yet I’d have recognized his dear face anywhere.

Our granddaughter in red on left; Glenn on right in black.

I walked over to him. “Are you Glenn Gardner?”

“Yes,” he smiled, studying my face, trying to place who I was.

“I’m Linda Thomas, your neighbor in Lomalinda.” Both of us burst out laughing and gave each other hugs. During our visit, we met his adorable daughter and lovely wife and learned they live in a nearby town. His daughter was on the middle school team competing against my granddaughter’s team.

Dave, Glenn, and Linda

As we visited at the track that day, I reminded Glenn of the boa constrictor incident, and he admitted he remembered it—of course any child would—so I apologized and asked his forgiveness.

He was quick to assure me, wearing his great smile,

that he’d forgiven me.

That was one of the most important moments of my life.

For more than half of my lifetime 

I’ve grieved over what I did to Glenn.

After my memoir was published in June, I sent Glenn a copy and soon he sent me this:

“I received your memoir and am reading it. So glad you wrote this.

“As for the snake, rest assured I always enjoyed spending time in your home. I have very fond memories of you in your kitchen listening to the Carpenters, so much so that I bought all the Carpenters’ CDs once I got married and played them in our car, in our kitchen, etc., all the while being reminded of those wonderful years you were our neighbors. . . .

“Forever grateful for you, and this book has been and will be healing.” *

I wrote back to Glenn, saying I still felt bad he’d had to look at my ugly, screaming face. “THAT face is what you had to look at. THAT face is still in your memory. That’s why I’m overwhelmed at your forgiving spirit and your grace. THANK YOU.”

Glenn replied (and this still chokes me up), 

“Consider yourself loved and cherished. 

THE only face of Linda Thomas I know 

is one of love and comfort, 

so look in the mirror and smile. 

THAT face is in my memory.”

What grace! What forgiveness! His words still make me cry in gratitude.

I could write much more about experiences of receiving grace and forgiveness from God and others but instead, let me leave you with these words from Frederick Buechner:

“To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, “You have done something unspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us. . . . However, although I make no guarantee that I will be able to forget what you’ve done, and though we may both carry scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us. I still want you for my friend.”

“To accept forgiveness means to admit that you’ve done something unspeakable that needs to be forgiven. . . .”

           

“When somebody you’ve wronged forgives you, you’re spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience.

“When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you’re spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride.

“For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other’s presence.”  (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)   

All I can say is “Amen.”

And “Thank you.”

*About eighteen months after our family returned to the States, Glenn’s brother-in-law, Chet Bitterman, was kidnapped by Marxist guerrillas and murdered. You can read more about it in my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.