OAN Staff Abril Elfi
2:59 PM – Monday, April 14, 2025
An American pastor has been kidnapped while he was delivering a sermon in South Africa.
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On Thursday night, Josh Sullivan, a 45-year-old from Tennessee, was reportedly taken at gunpoint after four men broke into the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell while the pastor was preaching.
Police spokesman Captain Andre Beetge told the BBC that the alleged kidnappers also stole two cell phones from churchgoers, and then sped off with the clergyman in his silver Toyota Fortuner. The car was later found abandoned about a mile away.
Beetge said that the case is currently being handled by the Hawks, a specialized police unit in the region that investigates organized crime, economic crime, corruption, and other serious offenses.
“The police are currently following all possible leads to locate the victim and apprehend the perpetrators,” Hawks spokesman Lt. Col. Avele Fumba stated, the outlet reported.
According to TimesLive, Reverend Jeremy Hall, a pastor based in the Eastern Cape province and the Sullivan family’s spokesperson, witnessed the incident.
“They knew his name,” Hall told the outlet. “The men came into the church and initially held Meagan and walked her towards the door before saying, ‘Josh, is this your wife?’ They then pushed her to the ground and took Josh before driving off in his vehicle.”
According to his own website, Sullivan, who sees himself as “a church planting missionary,” traveled to South Africa with his family from Tennessee in November 2018 to create a church for Xhosa-speaking people.
Sullivan has also been on staff at Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville since 2012.
Fellowship Baptist Church wrote on Facebook for everyone to “Please pray for Josh Sullivan, missionary to South Africa.”
A spokesperson from the U.S. State Department told CBS News that they were aware of the kidnapping of an American citizen in South Africa, however, it has no further information to share at this time.
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