A catechist in Burkina Faso prayed 700 Hail Marys in a single night after he was captured by Islamic extremists.
Mathieu Sawadogo was kidnapped and held for four months with his pregnant wife before he was released.
Speaking out now about his ordeal, he told Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that he “never stopped praying” after armed men seized him at his home in broad daylight.
He said: “I remember one night that I prayed 700 Hail Marys – I counted them out with pebbles. At that time, prayer was the only thing that sustained me.
“We never felt abandoned by God – praying the Rosary every day gave me strength.”
Mr Sawadogo – who became a catechist in Dori Diocese in 2003 – said a group of extremists visited him at home in Baasmere twice in 2018 to demand that he stopped “praying and organising religious services”.
He added that the men said: “If you continue to do what you are doing, bad things will happen to you.”
He stressed that, even though he “was afraid”, he refused to “stop preaching the Word of God”.
The third time the terrorists came, in May 2018, they ordered him to the ground, blindfolded him and bound his hands and feet.
They also torched his home before forcing him on a motorcycle between two extremists.
Mr Sawadogo said he thought he was “going to die” – and did not realise that his five-months pregnant wife had also been captured until the men removed his blindfold the next day.
He added: “It was awful – they didn’t let me speak to her for the entire trip.”
He explained that he did not know where he was for the whole four months of the ordeal while the militants repeatedly threatened to kill him.
They tried to force him to convert to Islam, teaching him Islamic doctrine and giving him a Muslim name and clothes.
He said that, after realising that he and his wife were not going to convert, “some said they should kill us, others that they should free us".
“Finally, one day they told us we were free to go.”
The catechist added that it took him and his wife a fortnight to find their way back to their completely destroyed home where he discovered his Bible among the ashes.
He highlighted: “It was very moving, because this was the Bible that the bishop had given me when I was commissioned as a catechist.”
After the ordeal, when the bishop asked him if he wanted to retire early, Mr Sawadogo replied that he did not want to stop – saying: “I want to continue to serve my people.”
ACN help in Burkina Faso has included Mass stipends for priests, support for seminarians, and emergency aid, food, medicine and psychological help for displaced Christians.
<em>(Photo courtesy of Aid to the Church in Need)</em>
