[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/betancourt_bbc.flv]

The ministry:

But we differed in one major way.

I am grateful to the many people who I know were kind enough to pray for me when I was lost in Gaza.

But actually, I was not praying myself.

I would hear on the radio of war and bloodshed in places like DR Congo, and I felt that if God was not intervening to spare the innocent there, I could not see quite why He might intervene for me.

I struggle to believe that God closely manages our individual lives.

But Ingrid’s faith seems to have been a huge factor in her survival.

She said that I had simply not asked the right questions about God, and that it was our connection with Him that made us human.

He was not creating the ills of the world, she said. Mankind had been given free will, and it was to blame.

She said that not to believe, and to be cynical, was to take the easy path in life.

God bless Ingrid Betancourt as she has blessed us.

And as usual, they didn’t get it right.

There is only one choice for person of the year.  And no, despite my admiration for Sarah Palin, not her.

Her.

A reprint from a post earlier this year:

A news item came across the wires earlier this week.  Since it had nothing to do with Barack Obama or Britney Spears the story received scant notice on these shores, back page mention if mentioned at all.

It happened anyway.

The name Ingrid Betancourt may ring a bell.  She was among the hostages who were recently freed in a daring undercover military operation after having been held hostage for years by a terrorist group in her native Colombia.  This past Saturday, she fulfilled a promise she had made during her time in captivity:

Accompanied by her mother, son and daughter, she went to Lourdes.

While what little coverage Ms. Betancourt’s story has received following her rescue has mostly focused on the Red Cross’ anger over its logo being used as part of the ruse to free the hostages, another cross has been rather ignored.

It was the one attached to the rosary Ms. Betancourt fashioned out of buttons and string during her captivity.

There is an inconvenient truth about Ms. Betancourt that makes her story less attractive, less sexy than modern news machine media prefers.  It’s this insistence she has about mentioning how her deep faith carried her through the years of torture and abuse at the hands of her captors.  Consider the following, as reported by CNS:

“I know I talk with God and God replies — people prefer to speak about the force of circumstances, rather than miracles, but I think miracles happen to everyone all the time,” said the ex-hostage, who also holds French citizenship.  “I have to do two things: forget and find spiritual peace, and be able to forgive.  When I do this, I’ll also have to recall my memories.  But perhaps, in time, these won’t be so painful.”

Betancourt, who noted the Lourdes pilgrimage would be her last public appearance until she recuperated, said she had made a rosary from buttons and old string during her captivity.

Meanwhile, Betancourt told a French Catholic magazine, Le Pelerin (The Pilgrim), July 12 that she constantly had read the Bible as a hostage, “made many promises to the Virgin Mary,” and believed her faith had “constantly grown.”

“If I had not had the Lord at my side, I don’t think I could have overcome this suffering,” she said.  “Being a hostage places you in a situation of constant humiliation.  You are a victim of total arbitrariness and you get to know what’s most vile in the human spirit.

“Faced by this, there are two paths.  You either let yourself grow ugly, bitter, peevish and vindictive, and let your heart fill with spite, or you choose the other path which Jesus showed us when he asked us to bless our enemies,” said Betancourt.

(For those who only accept their news from the Big Boys, Ms. Betancourt told the New York Times much the same thing.)

Laying aside all the snark over media priorities for something far more important, Ms. Betancourt is a woman to be honored and revered.  May her light that shone through unimaginably dark times be looked upon as the miracle it is.

As is she.