The Jenco Foundation
In June 2001, Terry Anderson established the Father Lawrence Martin Jenco Foundation to award an annual "Jenco Award" in memory of Marty Jenco. The Jenco Award recognizes and supports individuals who are working for the dignity and sense of worth of the people of Appalachia, individuals demonstrating the heroic qualities evident in Father Jenco's ministry.
The recipient's work need not be religious in the formal sense, but should demonstrate direct, caring action that contributes to the quality of life of individuals living in the Appalachian region.
The primary focus of the foundation's activities will be the 29 counties of Appalachian Ohio as well as the state of West Virginia. Nominees who live in this geographic region will be given preference in the awarding of grants, though exceptional individuals from other parts of Appalachia (as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission) may be considered. The Jenco Foundation does not fund project grants or organizational grants at this time; the award is intended to recognize individual work that has already been accomplished or is ongoing.
About Father Martin Lawrence Jenco
Jenco served as director of Catholic Relief Services in Beirut, Lebanon when he was kidnapped by Shiite Muslim extremists on January 8, 1985. The first thing you do," upon being captured, he said, "is sing. Then you cry. And, finally, you remain silent."
He kept track of time by marking days with saliva in the dust of his prison walls, marking months with knots in a potato sack. The priest recounted the day his captors tied explosives to his body. Another time, he saw a chain suspended from a ceiling and thought he was about to die. Although his faith never wavered, he admitted that he told God, "I'm not Job, I want to go home now."
Two months after Jenco was taken hostage, AP correspondent Terry Anderson was kidnapped and held at the same undisclosed location as Jenco. When Anderson learned that a priest was being held captive nearby, he asked to see him. The bearded, white-haired Father Jenco heard Anderson's confession -- the first in 25 years -- which to Anderson represented "my first formal step back to the church." Later, Jenco and Anderson shared a cell where they spoke often of their spiritual odysseys and of the role of the church in ministering to the poor and underprivileged.
Jenco was released after 19 months in captivity. Following his release Jenco said during a homecoming parade in his native Joliet, Ill., "I'm not sure if I'm in heaven or if I'm home. I'm overwhelmed."
Once freed, Jenco resumed his ministry by serving as chaplain at the University of Southern California, providing outreach programs to the Hispanic community. In 1995, Jenco wrote a book on his captivity, Bound to Forgive -- the Pilgrimage to Reconciliation of a Beirut Hostage. In the book Jenco wrote that he held no animosity toward those who kept him captive for 594 days. Instead, he said he wanted to return to Lebanon to visit the men who guarded him, sometimes brutally, sometimes gently. "I forgive, but I remember," Jenco wrote. "I do not forget the pain, the loneliness, the ache, the terrible injustice." Jenco also wrote of his six months in solitary confinement. He spoke often of his experiences as a hostage and emphasized the need to forgive.
Anderson remained imprisoned until 1991. But as Anderson later told a radio interviewer, his time spent with the priest in the early years of captivity was instrumental in helping "build a structure I could hold onto" in the years to follow.
Jenco died in July, 1996 at the age of 61. Anderson remarked on his passing: "I think if anybody is prepared to meet God in complete confidence, it should have been Marty Jenco," said Terry Anderson, the former chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, who was held captive with Jenco. Anderson calls Jenco "a wonderful personal example. . .the closest thing to a saint I have ever met."
View interview on "Christopher Closeup" [quicktime]