“I needed those six years as a hostage to turn my life around,” Gerco Deventer says

[Nat Quinn]

“I needed those six years as a hostage to turn my life around,” Gerco Deventer says.

 

 

Gerco van Deventer, the South African who was detained in Mali for six years, here opens his heart about his faith path and about the turning point in his life.

“I was unemployed for five months, and we wanted to pay off our debts. Then I got a short-term contract in Libya. I prayed about it and accepted it.”

This is according to Gerco van Deventer (48) at his home in Swellendam. Gerco, his wife Shereen, 40, and their three children live here.

Gerco already had considerable experience when he went to Libya on 1 November 2017 to work for a British Libyan contractor. Earlier, he worked in Afghanistan as a paramedic and security coordinator for eight years.

So when three days later, just after arriving in Libya, he was plucked from a car and kidnapped, he was prepared for it to some extent. “They shot at me. Only my little glasses in the back of the car was hit. I prayed and asked the Lord to guide me through this. Then a great calm came over me.”

 

‘They couldn’t take my faith’

That first month, Gerco was kept in a house in Awbari and constantly guarded. He did not know whether any ransom had been demanded or whether negotiations were being conducted. “I just know they wanted money. One guy looked after me the whole time. I had to settle for a drum of water full of mosquito larvae. But the worst part was knowing nothing, to be kept in the dark.

“I had to suppress the longing for my family or I would go crazy. My faith anchored me and my family was my driving force.

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“Every morning I wondered if I would survive it. My composure was my salvation. Although I cried a few times, I realised that I had to keep my emotions in check or I would end up in a dark hole.

“Our heavenly Father is wonderful. He takes you by the hand, breaks you down, and builds you up again as you need to be built up. I lost everything, but they couldn’t take my faith. They did try to convert me to Islam on a regular basis.

“I had a lot of time to think. I wondered what I had done wrong. Why was I kidnapped? Then I realized that I craved money and in the process moved my heavenly Father into the background.”

‘My daily conversations with the Lord’

A month later, Gerco, a Type 2 diabetic, was taken to a part of the Sahara Desert where he saw only planes and drones. Three Turkish engineers were held hostage with him by bloodyong, armed jihadis.

“They knew I was a Christian. I kept praying and asking God to protect me and provide for my family. Sometimes I became negative, because the heat was unbearable, up to 50 degrees. It was properly an open-air oven. I had to drink rain and salt water.

“If I wanted to take a walk, the sand would burn the skins off my feet. And besides two molars, I lost all my teeth.

Later, Gerco was taken to a house in Awari, while the three Turkish engineers were released.

A few days later, on 28 June 2018, Gerco was sold to Al-Qaeda in Mali and taken to the southern part of the Sahara. “I was never afraid. I didn’t want to show any sign of weakness. But I was their prisoner and I had to do what they said.

“I was tired of the dust, of the nights on the sand under the stars, but I decided that they would not break me.

“My daily conversations with the Lord gave me courage. I thought a lot about the things I did wrong, the things I wanted to fix. It helped that I had so much time, because before I wasn’t good at listening or talking things out.”

One evening, around eight o’clock, a group of drones began to circle above them. The jihadis thought Gerco was being disarmed and chained him to a tree. And started shooting at him. They aimed seven shots at his head, one of which went through his left arm and grazed his left thigh. He lost a lot of blood.

“But the Lord spared my life. I am so grateful to Him! They then cleaned my wound and bandaged it. I made a kind of ‘sling’ from my headscarf and a splint with a piece of cardboard.”

The turning point

From August 2021 to March 2023, the French journalist Olivier Dubois was detained together with Gerco, and later also an elderly Muslim from Mali. Olivier could speak a little English and he informed Gerco of what was happening in the world. That’s how Gerco first heard about Covid-19.

“In 2022 I got a radio after begging for it for two years. It was like manna in the desert. I was able to tune into World’s Last Chance, an American radio station, at four in the morning. And listen to the program ‘Out of the truth about the Word’ for two hours.

“But here in the middle of 2023, the heat and the dust storms got me down. I didn’t lose my faith, I was just in a hurry to be released. But I also knew God had his time, and I prayed that I would be blessed with Jesus’ calmness, patience and willingness to surrender.

“Those last eight months in the desert I realized that I can’t go on like this. We learn in the Scriptures that He wants to have a relationship with us. And I became convinced that I wouldn’t be able to get my life in order by myself.”

In October 2023, Gerco surrendered every aspect of his life to the Lord. This was the turning point in his life. “After a long path of faith growth, and after I broke down and my mistakes were pointed out to me, God systematically built me up again. At first I was short of wire; God calmed me down.

“He wants you to talk to Him about your problems. He wants a relationship with you, like a father with his child. He is our heavenly Father. It dawned on me more and more clearly. Also when I realized that I should only trust in Him and not also in myself.

“Only then was I freed from all my problems.

“I walked around with a song in my heart. I knew that He gives everything we need. In his time.”

‘Every moment is a gift’

When Gerco was finally picked up by Algeria’s security police on 15 December 2023, he could hardly believe it. It took a while before reality dawned on him: “I’m free!

“It was overwhelming. I cried when I thanked the Lord, for his intervention, for my freedom.

“When I flew to South Africa on December 22, my tears flowed again. Everything was over. It was a total of six years, one month and 12 days.

“The reunion with Shereen and my son really knocked my wind out. My child was no longer a soft-spoken six-year-old, but a tall, twelve-year-old boy. The time together is so precious now. Every moment is a gift.

“My thinking, my value system and my priorities changed like the flip of a hand. At that time I would desire a big house and a ‘fancy’ car; today I ask: ‘Why? Who do you glorify?'”

Gerco currently receives psychological help every week, as long as he needs it. Being chained to a tree or a car every night for three years does not sit in your clothes.

And the Lord sends angels every day on his path of life who try to help him. “I am so blessed,” he says.

“Now that I’m back, Shereen and I need to build our relationship again. We get to know each other from scratch, we talk about everything that bothered. I’m listening with increased attention now. She has also changed a lot over the past six years, growing in her faith.

“I needed these six years in prison to straighten out my life. The growth that took place in my faith made it worthwhile.

“I now have a hunger in me to read the Word. When I first did this, I started crying because I realized how privileged I am.

“I want to focus on my relationship with the Lord. I have a tranquillity about me after all, and peace that surpasses all understanding.”

 

 

 

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