A letter from captivity

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Next up: Doubletake is back tomorrow with the first of a three-part series. It’s called “The kidnapping of Kayla Mueller.”

It’s about a young American aid worker from Prescott, Arizona. In August of 2013 she crossed the border from Turkey into Syria with a friend. On their way back, ISIS militants stopped their truck. At the time, the Islamic terror group controlled much of Syria and had its sights set on a worldwide caliphate.

Rod Safar Jalany was working with Doctors Without Borders at the time.

ROD SAFAR JALANY: A van came and cut off the road. Between six to seven armed and masked people forced us to leave the car and go with them to their car. … I was very terrified. The first thing that came to my mind was this was a mistake.

REICHARD: Kayla was one of four Americans held for ransom in that period by the so-called ISIS Beatles. Kayla would eventually be forced to marry the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. For Carl and Marsha Mueller, Kayla’s parents, this is an ordeal that has never really ended.

BROWN: WORLD’s Jenny Rough spent over two years reporting this story, and even interviewed people who were held captive with Kayla in Syria. Doubletake host Les Sillars sat down with Jenny recently to talk about this story, and what she learned.

LES SILLARS: So, Jenny, how did this story come onto your radar?

JENNY ROUGH: I have a friend, a really good friend, who is from Prescott, Arizona … and we were just on the phone one day, and she said, “Did you ever read that letter from Kayla Mueller?” This was a letter that Kayla had written while she was imprisoned by ISIS, and another hostage who was being released, had kind of slipped it out. … but I went back after that conversation, I read the letter and I was just struck, I mean, the first thought that went through my mind was this reminds me of something the Apostle Paul wrote when he was imprisoned … Kayla was talking about even in prison I'm free. She surrendered herself to her Creator. She wasn't writing her parents pray for me, pray that I get released, pray for my well-being … She was praying for them. It just really touched me and my friend said you really should write this story.

SILLARS: Today is August 14th. What's the significance of this date?

ROUGH: It is Kayla's birthday. So she would have been 38 today. She was killed when she was 26. And this date is particularly meaningful not just because it’s Kayla’s birthday but because when … U.S. forces raided Baghdadi's compound and captured him and killed him, they named the operation, or they named the task force, Task Force 814, after Kayla's birthday.

SILLARS: As you got to know Kayla, what struck you most about her?

ROUGH: See, that question brings tears to my eyes. I don't know why. I just I read that letter. I connected with her parents, and I just found myself thinking of her story all the time. … I just just wanted to learn all about her. Just from a very young age, she wanted to go out in the world, out into the world, and help people.

SILLARS: In hindsight, it maybe looks a little foolish or perhaps naive as a young American female aid worker to go into Syria. Was that the case?

ROUGH: ISIS just wasn't on anyone's radar at the time, certainly not in Syria. … I mean, she was young and idealistic, I guess. But she even wrote about that to her parents. She wrote about, you know, the importance of preserving justice and bringing liberty and freedom to oppressed people and why is that idealism to want to pursue that?

SILLARS: We're headlining this podcast series, “The Kidnapping of Kayla Mueller,” but in a sense, it's not exactly all about Kayla Mueller, is it? Who is this story also about and why?

ROUGH: Yeah, that came to my attention pretty early on when I realized this story is really about Marsha and Carl Mueller, her parents. Marsha grew up in the Church of the Nazarene. Carl's dad or grandfather, I think, was a Lutheran minister. As a Christian family and as a Christian couple, their daughter is kidnapped. They're trying to negotiate with ISIS terrorists to bring her home and negotiate with God. And how do you navigate your faith? This just seemed to be such an extreme evil to me. To be captured by these terrorists, to be held in a hostage cell, to be sold off to ISIS's founder and leader, where she was raped and threatened to be killed, and eventually was killed. And her parents are trying to hang on to their faith and reading the Bible. I remember at one point Marcia was like, “I see ISIS everywhere.”

She was reading the Old Testament and the wars and the killings and the capturings and reading the Book of Job and the Psalms. Just Carl describing dropping to his knees behind his truck, just praying and begging for Kayla’s release, and so … this story is really their story. Obviously, a huge portion of it is about Kayla and what happened, but it's really how they navigated their faith and how they didn't lose it through this process.

SILLARS: Well, it's a terrific story, Jenny. Thank you for telling it, and we look forward to putting it out tomorrow.

ROUGH: It was great to be able to tell it. Thank you so much.

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