Gracia Burnham, 3 kids spent Christmas ’04 in RP

ROSE HILL, Kansas (AP) — Disguised in a long blond wig, former US hostage Gracia Burnham and her three children secretly returned to the Philippines where the family once served as missionaries and the woman and her husband were abducted.

That visit — which lasted three weeks during the recent Christmas school break — gave the family a "good dose of closure," Burnham told The Associated Press in a recent interview at her home near Wichita.

"We didn’t tell anyone here in America that we were going, and we didn’t tell anyone in the Philippines that we were coming. And I figured, if we could sneak in there as a family, we could be normal — and that is exactly what happened," she said.

It was her second trip to the Philippines since the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 20 people from Palawan in 2001. Among those abducted then were missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, of Wichita, and Guillermo Sobero of Corona, California.

Most of the hostages later escaped or were rescued or ransomed. Sobero and two Filipino workers were beheaded in captivity. The Burnhams’ 377-day ordeal ended with a bloody military rescue on June 7, 2002, that left Martin Burnham and Filipina nurse Ediborah Yap dead.

Gracia Burnham returned to Manila last July to testify against her abductors, but she still longed to return to the rural provinces — without the bulletproof vests and cars, the bodyguards, the FBI agents and the media.

Her children — Jeff, Mindy and Zach — had begged her to return to the home in the Philippines where the family had lived before the children were whisked away to safety after their parents’ kidnapping. So on their last visit, the family visited the province where they had once lived. They visited old friends, neighbors and co-workers and ate in their old house.

"They were just so happy to be in the old house," Gracia Burnham said of her children. "They were so happy to be with their friends, and they climbed mountains and spent the nights sleeping outside – you know, it’s the tropics. They would sleep out on the trampoline with their friends. I didn’t see sadness in them at all. I saw a lot of joy."

When it was time to return to Kansas, the children were ready, she said.

Since their return, Burnham said, her children "seem much more settled."

"They used to say things like, ‘Mom, do you remember when we were really making a difference in the world?’ We could see everyday how we were making a difference because there is poverty all around you – and here in America nobody needs anything," she said

Since her rescue, Burnham, 46, has devoted herself to raising her children. She believes that was the reason her life was spared. She also speaks to groups about her experiences as a hostage and has written two books, including one released this April.

In her second book, "To Fly Again," Burnham wrote about how her religious faith helped her forgive and adjust to life back in the United States without her husband.

"In my life, forgiving others has just been very healing for me," she said. "It has allowed me to go on without carrying the baggage that bitterness brings and the baggage of always being angry and upset about what has happened to you."

Her first book, "In the Presence of My Enemies," which described the couple’s experiences in the jungle as hostages, became a bestseller.

She keeps in contact with the FBI, recently calling the agency to discuss something she remembered: her captors talking about taking their war to Manila. She warned the FBI to watch certain places in the city, particularly the presidential palace.

For now, the family is trying to move on from the kidnapping ordeal.

Jeffrey, 18, graduates from high school next month and plans to study aviation at a Virginia university. Mindy, 15, is active in a community theater group that is putting on a presentation of "Fiddler on the Roof." Zach, 14, is moving from middle school to high school this year.

Since the kidnappings, the family members more freely discuss their feelings, Gracia Burnham said. When Jeff leaves each morning for school, she said, he still usually tells her: "If I never see you again, I want you to know I love you."

Burnham laughed when asked whether there was another man in her life yet.

"I don’t think any guy would be interested in this mess: three teenagers and me speaking about my first husband. Like some guy is going to want to get involved with that," she said.

She had believed the best part of her life was over when Martin died — until she met the Rev. Edward Hartman in Mississippi. Hartman, who had remarried after losing his wife when their four children were small, encouraged Burnham to believe the best is yet to come — so much so that Burnham said she rewrote the ending of her book that she had already sent to the publisher.

"I truly believe the best is yet to come, and I have no idea what that could possibly be," she said.

"The God who took me through the jungle in the Philippines is going to take me through the jungle in America, because I think life here can feel like a jungle."