Making the Best of It

By Clayton Neuman

UPDATE

Fifteen years ago last week, Anglican envoy TERRY WAITE was released from captivity after being held for 1,763 days by the Islamic Jihad. An adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Waite had been kidnapped in January 1987 when he went to Beirut to negotiate the release of Western hostages. Today Waite no longer works for the Anglican Church. In fact, he no longer even attends services. Fed up with attempts to modernize Anglican worship that he says have "left little time for contemplation and quietness," he began going to Quaker services last month. Waite now devotes his time to charitable causes with personal resonance. He recently started an organization called Hostage UK, which offers support to families of hostages. This week he plans to return to Lebanon to work with children in Palestinian refugee camps. And at the end of the month, he will help launch a telephone hotline for trauma victims in Britain. "We all have difficult experiences," Waite says, "but suffering needn't destroy us. It's possible for something creative to emerge from it."