The Islamic State reportedly beheaded the remaining Japanese hostage late last month, but a tweet of Kenji Goto’s from four years ago is going viral.
“Closing my eyes and holding still. It’s the end if I get mad or scream. It’s close to a prayer. Hate is not for humans. Judgment lies with God. That’s what I learned from my Arabic brothers and sisters,” reads a translation of a tweet from Sept. 7, 2010.
It’s now been retweeted more than 22,000 times in a tribute to the slain journalist.
Goto was a freelancer who reported on social justice in the Middle East.
Goto accepted Jesus in 1997, according to Assist News Service. Christ’s call to reach the poor and broken in spirit seemed to motivate his journalism.
“Children, the poor and the needy, those are where he is coming from,” fellow freelance journalist Toshi Maeda told CCTV. “He just wants to meet children in conflicted areas and tell the rest of the world their suffering. As he follows their stories, he ends up in war zones.”
“I have seen horrible places and have risked my life, but I know that somehow God will always save me,” Goto said in a May article for the Japanese publication Christian Today.
