“Prayer sustained me,” Suellen Tennyson, 83, a former Catholic elementary school principal, told the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ internal newspaper. “That was the thing that kept me going because I had nothing.” Tennyson’s account in the Clarion Herald is the most complete retelling of a case that drew international headlines and involved the FBI, the US Air Force and a US embassy more than 6,000 miles from her home in suburban New Orleans. A former international leader of the Marianites of the Holy Cross, a Catholic order, Tennyson began working on a medical mission in Yalgo, Burkina Faso in 2013. Throughout 2021 and this year, attacks by armed Islamist groups and unlawful killings carried out by state forces and pro-government militias have destabilized Burkina Faso, according to Human Rights Watch. In early April, armed men stormed the compound Tennyson shared with two other nuns and lay people. The attackers – members of a Muslim sect – shot up a truck and other belongings and then took Tennyson, at gunpoint and on a motorbike, deep into the West African forests. Blindfolded and gagged, she didn’t have her shoes, glasses or medication. Tennyson said she had no idea where she was being taken or why, before she was handed over to another Muslim group. “But from the beginning,” he told the Clarion Herald, “I was asking God to use it for good.” She used paper and a pen given to her by one of her captors to count the days she was held and note when she was moved, drawing a horizontal line each time she was moved, to visually divide her captivity into sections. Tennyson said her captors did not physically harm her as they forced her to sleep outside under a tent of branches and leaves. One even started washing her feet after realizing that a toenail had become deformed and bloody during the initial motorcycle ride. He joked with another that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. “I can’t run and I don’t know the way!” he remembered telling him. He endured a bout of malaria and lost 20 pounds on a diet of spaghetti, rice, sardines and coffee. She was lonely and uncertain. She had no book to take her mind off her troubles. Tennyson told the Clarion Herald that she calmed herself by meditating on whatever scriptures she could remember and reciting prayers and Bible verses she first memorized as a child. He would also sing the hymn Amazing Grace. “I went through my mass every day,” said Tennyson, who grew up in an area of nearly 400,000 Catholics. Above all, Tennyson said, she asked God for the strength to be “peacefully patient.” In August, her captors took her on a motorbike on a three-river trek. Tennyson said she could barely hold on and spent much of the ride begging to rest. Finally, the nun and her captors approached another group of men. Tennyson said she lamented, “Oh Jesus, is this another group I’m going to start over with?” But then one of the men said she was free to go. Tennyson soon learned that she was in Niger, east of Burkina Faso. They brought her to a house to shower and eat. “Oh, I felt like I was in heaven,” Tennyson told the Clarion Herald. No ransom was paid, according to Tennyson, who regarded this event as miraculous. Personnel from the FBI, the US Embassy in Niger and the US Air Force helped Tennyson return home by August 31. Although she now gets around with the help of a walker, she said she is regaining her strength. Tennyson told the Clarion Herald that she was grateful for everyone who prayed and worked for her release. “The only way I can say thank you is ‘Thank you,’” he said. “My heart is full of gratitude.”
