Last week my heart sank when I watched the news. It was of a pastor being kidnapped while speaking at a prayer meeting in church. I thought “Oh Lord, how terrible!” At the time, I did not know where it happened. The truth is, in these days and times it could happen anywhere.

Who can forget what happened at the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in the Square Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018? What about what happened at a Bible Study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the oldest African-American church in the southern United States on June 17, 2015? Then there was the 1st Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas in 2017. These and others are sad days we pray are never repeated.

When I saw the headlines of a “Pastor being kidnapped,” I wondered where it happened. I was shocked to see it was a place where I have been visiting for the last several years and doing the same thing that this pastor was doing — preaching, praying, serving.

He was in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, the area I minister in several times a year. He was a U.S. pastor named Josh Sullivan from Tennessee. Sadly, he was abducted at gun point while delivering a message during a prayer service. The report was they knew him by name, meaning this was not a haphazard event. He was a planting pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell outside of the city of Gqeberha, (Port Elizabeth). That’s the city I minister in when going to South Africa.

They believed he was kidnapped for a ransom. More and more kidnappings have taken place in that community. They believe the bigger the kidnapped victim would lead to a bigger ransom. Four masked armed men entered the church. They put the pastor in his own car and fled the area of the church.

The U. S. State Department was aware of the kidnapping of a U.S. Citizen but had no information to share at the time. South Africa especially in that area has a high level of poverty. Making it convenient to make desperate decisions but not justifying bad decisions. It is said that there were over 17,000 kidnappings in 2024 alone. Sadly, a national report says, that there are 33 people killed by guns every day in South Africa.

The South African Police have a special unit that deals with events just like this called the Hawks Unit. When this special unit located where they had been holding this pastor for three days, the kidnappers started to flee to a vehicle with the victim. A very intense shoot-out took place while they tried to drive away.

The three kidnappers in the vehicle were killed in a hail of bullets.

The only one said to live that was in the car was the kidnapped victim. Some are calling it an Easter Miracle that with all the bullets entering the car, and killing the men surrounding him, but not one bullet touching the pastor.

Obviously, I was not there, but that sounds like a miracle to me.

Then it makes me think that for over five years, I have been going to the same area, and nothing has happened to me or my family; that is an Easter Miracle to me. All things being equal, if I am blessed to continue to June of this year, I will be pastoring 45 years, and God has had mercy on me.

I believe that miracles can be both what happened or what could have happened, but did not happen. As we move into the spring, resurrecting from the winter, as we celebrate Passover, or Easter, we should be thankful for not only what happened and you lived through it, but also for what could have happened, but never happened. I pray not only you experience a miracle, but that you come to the understanding that every day you get up, you are the miracle!

Happy Easter!

Bishop Darrell W. Cummings is pastor of Bethlehem Apostolic Temple in Wheeling and Shiloh Apostolic Faith Assembly in Weirton.