In war torn Beirut, Labanon, in January 1987, Church of England envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped by the extremist group Hezbollah. People around the world began to pray for his safety and release.

In the town of Bedford, fifty miles north of London, a British housewife, joy Brodier, joined In the prayers for terry that were included in the regular service of her Baptist church. But joy did something more. She put her prayers on paper.

One day after the second anniversary of terry’s capture, Joy happened upon a postcard depicting a memorable event in her town’s history. In the seventeenth century the preacher John Bunyan was imprisoned in a Bedford jail for his religious beliefs, and during his long imprisonment he wrote the classic pilgrim’s progress, the picture on Joy’s postcard was of a stained-glassed window showing john Bunyan in his cell.

Struck by the similar circumstances of the two men, joy picked up the postcard and on the back of it penned a message for terry:

‘People everywhere are praying for you and working for your release and the release of the other hostages.’ she signed it, and then hesitated. How to address it? Finally she wrote all she knew, all anyone knew: terry Waite, c/o Hezbollah (party of God), Beirut, Lebanon.

The card sat for a day on joy’s mantelpiece next to her clock. Her husband, graham, glanced at it and said incredulously. ‘You’re going to send this?’ joy shrugged and nodded.

At the post office she handed the postcard to the clerk and asked, ‘How much?’ the clerk looked at it, scratched her head and then matter-of-factly charged joy the normal rate for an airmail postcard to Beirut.

Three years passed. Three years of rumours, bulletins, war, stalled negotiations and continued prayers for the release of the hostages. Then in 1991 word came that terry Waite and us hostage tom Sutherland were being freed.

At last, on 19 November, terry Waite landed on British soil. In an airport hangar he spoke to the waiting journalists and TV cameras. At noon that same day in Bedford, joy Brodier watched the news on television. She heard a haggard but jubilant terry speak of his 1,763 days in prison, his hope for the release of the other prisoners and his gratitude to all the people who had been praying for him. In particular he mentioned a postcard, the only piece of mail that had reached him in nearly five years.

He described it: ‘A picture of stained-glass window from Bedford showing john Bunyan in jail.’

It can’t be, Joy thought, ‘it had to be,’ her husband said. Four weeks later a letter arrived from terry Waite. ‘It’s my turn to write to you,’ he began.

How joy’s postcard got to him was nothing short of amazing. Even the guard who delivered it to terry was amazed. For five years terry’s whereabouts had been secret. The internatational Red Cross couldn’t reach him. The British embassy in Beirut had boxes full of cards and letters they couldn’t deliver. And yet joy’s postcard reached him.

The one summer joy Brodier and terry Waite finally met in person. Standing beneath the stained glass window at the Bunyan meeting house in Bedford, terry thank joy for what he described as the ’simple act’ that gave him such hope in his own captivity.

A simple act, indeed, and though the odds against her postcard getting through were staggering, joy Brodier proved what power there can be in a tiny deed done in great faith.