The family of a Ukrainian pastor who said that he had been abducted by Russian armed forces thanked God for the man’s release.
The wife of 50-year-old Dmitry Bodyu, the pastor of the Word of Life Church in Melitopol, Ukraine, Helen Bodyu, shared in a Facebook post on Monday that her husband was home. Bodyu credited God and the power of prayer for her husband’s release after saying during an interview with NBC News on Thursday that she had not heard from him since his abduction.
“Thank you all so much for your prayers,” Bodyu said in her Facebook post. “Dmitry is home. He’s doing well.”
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Bodyu thanked her friends and family for their support, concerns, and their “help and love” during this time. “God is good!!!! Praise the Lord!” she proclaimed.
While details about the pastor’s release were not provided, his sister, Olesya Griffith from northern Texas, said in an interview that she was “happy and relieved” to hear that he had been freed, according to NBC5.
Between eight and 10 Russian soldiers took Bodyu from his home on the morning of March 19, his wife and their 30-year-old daughter, Esther Bodyu-Ogaga, told the outlet. Bodyu noted that while the soldiers confiscated devices such as phones, computers, and personal documents such as a U.S. passport, they had been nonaggressive.
“They walked in, and they just started kind of questioning him right away, like, ‘Are you guys American citizens?’ That’s kind of, like, one of the first questions they had,” Bodyu said in the interview.
Bodyu-Ogawa, who lives in Hawaii, speculated that her father had been taken for several reasons having to do with their U.S. citizenship, his investments in local restaurants, or because of his preaching, according to the outlet.
The State Department had said that it was aware of the reports of Bodyu’s abduction but did not issue a statement for privacy reasons, NBC News reported.
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“I really feel like prayer makes a difference, and it’s made a difference in this case,” Otis Gillaspie, the pastor of Open Door Church in Burleson, Texas and a friend of the Bodyu family told the outlet of the pastor’s release.
