It’s a miracle!

Last month we reported on this story:

James Twyman wants you to know that he’s not going to just wander into ISIS-controlled territory with a guitar slung on his back for his upcoming “peace prayer concert” inside Syria. He isn’t crazy, he tells me over the phone from his houseboat in Oregon. “I have no intention of being a martyr.”

The 53-year-old “Peace Troubadour” first announced his plan to venture into Syria in a blog post last month:

Performing the peace prayers in ISIS Controlled Syria will be the most important and dangerous peace mission of my life…Every peace mission I’ve been on has been dangerous, but this journey is without question the most perilous, and in my opinion—the most important. People everywhere are concerned about the escalating violence in the Middle East, especially with the rise of ISIS, but they don’t feel empowered to be part of the solution. That is what we are about to change.

Twyman’s original idea was to enter Syria through Turkey, travel through Kurdish-controlled areas, and then into ISIS territory, where he would perform wherever he could get to. “But now things have really escalated,” he says. The State Department made it clear that it would have little ability to help him should anything go awry. “People have been writing me, begging me not to go. You know, just the most fearful things you could imagine.” Things like the kidnappings, beheadings, and the chaos that have become ISIS’ trademark. Twyman’s well aware of it all, but says, “I try not to put too much energy in it, but I do need to be responsible about it. I think the most important thing we all need today is courage.”