Family and pals of the Missouri man who was imprisoned in Syria after he stated he crossed into the nation on a “pilgrimage” to Damascus hailed his sudden restoration as a “Christmas miracle” on Thursday after about seven months with no contact.
“We’re very blessed that he’s secure, that he’s good, that he’s protected,” Pixie Rogers stated of her brother, Travis Timmerman. “And I noticed on the information that he acquired fed.”
Timmerman, 29, who’s from Urbana, Missouri, a small neighborhood north of Springfield, initially recognized himself solely as “Travis” in a video that emerged in a single day that led some to misidentify him as lacking American journalist Austin Tice, 43.
But Timmerman’s household stated that he, too, had been lacking, though they’d no clue he was in Syria.
“I’m unsure what his pondering was in that,” Rogers stated of her brother coming into a rustic in battle. “I would not suppose he’d do one thing like that.”
She stated his household knew he was going to journey to Prague, the Czech capital, after which Hungary. His mom, Stacey Collins Gardiner, stated he needed to jot down throughout his journey and be taught extra about God and faith.
But after the occasional electronic mail and cellphone name, contact dried up and so they apprehensive his laptop computer and cellphone might have been stolen.
Only in latest weeks, Rogers stated, after Missouri regulation enforcement was capable of get in touch with U.S. Embassy officers in Hungary did the household be taught Timmerman was in Lebanon.
Don Kelderhouse, the pastor of Preston Bible Baptist Church, in Preston, Missouri, the place Timmerman attends providers, stated he knew of his plans to journey to Eastern Europe, however not the Middle East.
“We thought it could be a month or two that he’d be gone,” Kelderhouse stated, including, “We thought the cash would run out and he’d go residence. We didn’t know if he was useless or alive.”
Authorities in Missouri and Budapest, the Hungarian capital, put out a lacking individuals report for a person named Pete Timmerman, with Hungarian police figuring out him as “Travis” Pete Timmerman.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol stated in a public consciousness bulletin that Timmerman had gone lacking from Budapest on May 28.
Timmerman informed reporters that he was stopped by Syrian officers earlier this 12 months after crossing into the nation on foot.
“I used to be on a pilgrimage to Damascus,” he informed NBC News in a constructing on the outskirts of the capital. He stated he had spent three days residing in a mountain space across the border between Lebanon and Syria “with out meals and water” earlier than he was noticed by a border guard and detained.
Timmerman stated he was imprisoned by the regime for months throughout which “I used to be fed properly, I at all times had water, the one problem was not having the ability to go to the lavatory” recurrently.
He was then launched by insurgent forces as they broke into prisons throughout the nation to free detainees.
Timmerman stated he spent the previous few days wandering the streets barefoot, sleeping exterior and in an deserted home. He was then discovered as soon as once more by an area resident he had requested for water, subsequently showing within the video that rapidly unfold throughout social media and drew the information media’s consideration.
After being positioned by NBC News and different shops in Dhiyabia, Timmerman stated he had “been studying the scripture so much” earlier than deciding to cross the mountains from Lebanon into Syria.
Kelderhouse stated that Timmerman turned baptized within the church a couple of 12 months and half in the past and had been desperate to share his religion. He stated he additionally has a regulation diploma and had been writing, and the concept of him touring throughout Eastern Europe to share his beliefs and be taught extra in regards to the world did not strike him as odd. But the chance he took by going to Syria was stunning, he added.
“God should have a plan for his life,” Kelderhouse stated. “He saved him alive.”
Kayle Owens, a classmate of Timmerman’s at Skyline High School in Urbana, a city of about 400 folks, stated he had performed soccer and made “many lifelong friendships at our faculty.”
When pals discovered he was lacking, they prayed.
“It really is a Christmas miracle,” Owens stated. “We’ve been praying tirelessly for his secure return, and people prayers have been answered.”