“They took him! They took him!”
As Pastor Raymond Koh drove to work on Feb. 13, 2017, in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, several vehicles suddenly surrounded his car and forced him off the road. More than a dozen masked men jumped out of the vehicles, rushed toward the pastor’s car and smashed his car window open. Within 40 seconds, the men had shoved the pastor into one of their vehicles and disappeared.
When a Christian coworker showed Raymond’s 31-year-old daughter, Esther Koh, a social media post about the abduction, she nearly collapsed. “They took him!” she cried as her coworker tried to comfort her.
By “they,” Esther was referring to someone who had recently sent her father a death threat — an unmistakable message of two bullets in a cigarette box. The threat followed a raid on his office by authorities accusing him of trying to convert Malay Muslims to Christianity. While ethnic minorities in Malaysia may identify as Christians, ethnic Malays are prohibited from converting to Christianity, and it is illegal for anyone to share the gospel with them.
“It was really a strange event that he would be kidnapped [that way],” Esther said. “It has not happened before in this nation that someone was kidnapped in such a huge convoy and in such a huge operation.”
Since that February day more than eight years ago, the family has received little new information about Raymond.
Esther said she struggled with anxiety and depression during the years waiting for answers and justice. “At first I was hopeful,” she said, “but when the police were not forthcoming with what happened and they were not investigating properly, I did not have much hope anymore. I felt that the truth would not be uncovered.”
Remembering tender moments with her father, Esther said she always knew she could count on him to listen to her. “Once, I was facing a problem with friends, quarreling with them, and I was telling him the whole story,” she said. “He was quietly listening beside me, and after I poured out all my troubles, he said, ‘God knows.’ He just said those two words, and I felt very understood. He reminded me that God knows what’s happening in my life, and that reminds me today that God knows what’s happening to him as well.”
Esther said her father had a quietness of spirit that showed itself in acts of service, especially to those in physical need. “He did not have much when he was young,” she said. “That’s what motivated him to start a community nonprofit organization.” The organization Raymond founded helped single mothers and impoverished families, primarily by providing them with food, and was forced to close after his abduction.
Esther referenced 1 Peter as a reminder of God’s work in the lives of every Christian. “It says rejoice because you are suffering because of your faith,” she said. “I think suffering brings the hope that we are not of this world but we are looking forward, we have eternal life in Christ, and that is more precious than the suffering that we face in this world.”
Having received her father’s gentle guidance during the turbulence of her teen years, Esther now sees the same trustworthy gentleness in her heavenly Father. “When we have needed wisdom,” she said, “we could only depend on God and trust him.”
She remembers well: “God knows.”