Story number 2 for 29 Dec 1999

Next, in a little over a month, New Tribes Mission will mark the 7th anniversary of the kidnapping of missionaries Mark Rich, Dave Mankins, and Rick Tenenoff. Agency spokesman Scott Ross says they’ve received several leads, half saying the men are dead – half saying they’re alive. “What’s encouraging to us is not that type of news, but that we are now getting movement out of the Colombian military to be willing to go into some of those hotter areas and search out and check some of these leads. So, we have four more of those that we would really like to have followed through, over half of them claiming in some way or another that our men are live.” According to Ross, it’s been a long seven years and he’s asking people to pray for truth. “The wives have always wanted the truth and we do too. We know that this group holds people for a long time, but we also know that it has been a long time and jungle living, especially with the combat that our men might not have survived.” However, New Tribes still believe they are alive.