As millions of Americans watched the Dallas Cowboys pummel the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII on the final night of January 1993, three American missionary families in the isolated Panama rain forest settled into their nightly routine.

Earlier on that Sunday, 28 members of the indigenous Kuna tribe had attended a believers' meeting facilitated by the New Tribes Missions (NTM) families in the village of Pucuro, population 300. The Americans had moved to the village in the Darien province of Panama to translate the Bible into Kuna as well as to teach the Indians how to read and write their own language. Dave Mankins, the missionary who had been in the community the longest, stretched out in a hammock, near his front door to listen to news on a short-wave radio. His wife, Nancy, read a book by flashlight in her hammock.

Suddenly three men wearing camouflage uniforms and toting machine guns burst through the front screen door. When Dave stood up they hit him with the butt of their rifles and pointed the automatic weapons at his head.

Nancy, instantly recalling a one-hour NTM training course on what to do in a terrorism situation, remained calm and deciphered what the intruders wanted as they rapidly yelled in Spanish. They tied Dave's hands behind his back and then ransacked the house, seizing the short-wave radio, laptop computer, tape recorder, and money.

Nancy initially thought the men only wanted to steal possessions, but then one ordered her to pack a suitcase that contained three sets of clothes for her husband. She included a Bible in the bag.

One invader went outside and fired a shot into the air. Two shots rang out in the distance, signaling—Nancy knew—that similar invasions had taken place at the home of the other two missionary families in the village.

At his residence, Rick Tenenoff had been sitting in a hammock while his wife, Patti, finished putting their two youngest children to bed. Patti heard a scuffle in the living room. As she looked down the hallway she saw Spanish-speaking intruders tying her husband's hands. When ordered to pack a suitcase for Rick, Patti had the presence of mind to include a family photo. Likewise, thieves burst into the home of Mark and Tania Rich, who had just finished rocking their two little girls to sleep.

These interlopers took the men—Dave Mankins, then 43; Rick Tenenoff, 36; and Mark Rich, only 23—into the jungle. The last image the wives had of their husbands was the men being marched away, hands bound behind their backs. The women gathered at the Tenenoff house, trying to make sense of the few moments of terror and confusion. The swirling events seemed surreal, as the men who took their husbands didn't reveal their identity or objectives.

Nancy Mankins wanted to travel by river to a Panamanian town for help, but the dark prevented such a venture from being safe. Besides, Kuna men warned her that the invaders threatened anyone who left the village. The Indians had seen 100 armed men surrounding the village in trees and on rooftops as the abductions took place.

From that point on, the women never saw or talked to their husbands again. The circumstances of that January night a decade ago this month serve as a reminder of how dangerous missionary life is in today's world.

Dave and Nancy Mankins accepted Jesus as their Savior on the same night in 1976, and they soon heard about NTM, an organization based in Sanford, Florida, that has 3,200 missionaries worldwide. The fact that some people still didn't have a written language enthralled Dave. He gave up his career as a draftsman and Nancy left her work as an escrow officer. After Bible school and language instruction, the Mankins in 1986 became the first of the three missionary families to arrive in Pucuro. Although missionaries had lived in the community as much as 15 years earlier, those predecessors taught in Spanish rather than the Kuna native tongue.