Patti Ganal believes her 6-hour ordeal being held by Bedouins happened for a reason, and may even lead to a peaceful resolution to a local conflict.

 

In a phone conversation with ABS CBN North America News Bureau, the 66-year-old Los Gatos resident said there was never a moment when she felt fear, not even when she was told that she and other members of her tour group had to be captured to send a message to the Egyptian government.

 

“I had so much peace in my heart. The other captor said that you just think that we are continuing your journey here in the mountains and in the wilderness,” Ganal recounted. 

 

She added that her abductors treated her like family. “They smiled and they tried to light a cigarette and I said, 'I’m sorry I don’t like cigarettes',” Ganal said.

 

Ganal was aboard a tour bus when the armed men stopped them near the foot of Mt. Sinai. The Associated Press described Sinai as a restive region that has seen security crumble since Egypt's popular uprising last year

 

She and 63-year-old nurse Norma Supe of Union City were taken while on a Christian pilgrimage, shortly after they saw the place where the Old Testament says Moses received the Ten Commandments.  

 

Ganal took the opportunity to counsel her captors about God and about what they should and “thou shall not” do.

 

“I told them you cannot win and you cannot be heard with a gun but you can be heard with the help of God,” Ganal said.

 

Six hours later, the Bedouin tribesmen released them. The freed victims later met South Sinai Govenor Khaled Fouda.

 

Ganal relayed to the governor the grievances of her captors. “The first thing that I told the governor is to implement safe travels for tourists. They have to revive the previously halted convoy system where a group of policemen in a truck would follow tourist buses,” Ganal added.

 

The Associated Press reported that the Bedouin captors are from the South Sinai Peninsula which is home to Egypt’s most lawless tribes. They have complained of discrimination and random arrests by the government.

 

The instability in Egypt since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak has affected the tourism industry. 

 

Ganal, on the other hand, remains unperturbed.

 

She is now en route to the United States but says she will keep coming back to the country where she believes God used her to help others.