An American pastor who was kidnapped at gunpoint in South Africa final week is “an distinctive father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, energy and generosity,” his mom advised NBC Information on Tuesday.

Josh Sullivan’s “humor and wit are a blessing,” Tonya Morton Rinker stated in an announcement, including that he was “all the time prepared with a joke, and ceaselessly searching for to make folks snicker.”

Sullivan, 35, has been residing in South Africa along with his spouse, Meagan, and their kids since 2018, The Related Press reported, citing the Fellowship Baptist Church weblog.

Thursday night, a bunch of armed males raided his small congregation, a department of Fellowship Baptist Church within the southern city of Motherwell, as he was main a prayer service, South African native police advised the AP.

A police spokesperson, Capt. Andre Beetge, stated Sullivan was taken captive and compelled into his personal truck, with the automobile later discovered deserted close by. Beetge didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from NBC Information.

Hawks, the department of the South African Police Service that investigates organized crime, confirmed to NBC Information in an announcement Tuesday that it was investigating Sullivan’s abduction.

It stated it needed to guarantee the general public that its “prime precedence at this stage is protected return of the sufferer” and requested anybody with details about the case to return ahead.

The State Division stated Friday in an announcement that it was conscious of experiences of the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in South Africa.

As of Tuesday, Sullivan’s whereabouts remained unknown, along with his household calling for prayers for his protected return.

Rinker, who has requested folks to wish for him and his household on her Fb web page, stated within the assertion that her son “has a servants coronary heart, a form compassionate spirit and is stuffed with selflessness.”

“He’s an distinctive father, husband, and son, embodying kindness, energy and generosity,” she added.

In an announcement posted to Fb on Thursday, Fellowship Baptist Church, which relies in Tennessee, urged its followers to “please pray for Josh Sullivan,” saying he had been “kidnapped at gunpoint” by a bunch of males.

The church stated in a separate put up Saturday that the times since his kidnapping, it had confronted rising questions, together with what it described as “malicious and hateful” messages, about why it deploys missionaries. “It’s this — as a result of God did and He advised us to,” the church stated.