April 7, 1999

Baptists pray for peace in Balkans
___By Bob Allen
___& Martha Skelton
___Associated Baptist Press
___McLEAN, Va. (ABP)--Leaders of two Baptist organizations joined other international Christian leaders in an Easter appeal to cease armed conflict in Kosovo and other parts of the world.
___Officials of the Baptist World Alliance and European Baptist Federation joined leaders from worldwide Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist and Anglican communions, as well

REFUGEES stretch for as far as the eye can see at a Macedonian checkpoint. (RNS/REUTERS)

as the World Council of Churches, in the Easter appeal.
___"In this season of Easter, Christians around the world share the profound pain of all those caught up in tragedies such as Kosovo," said the statement. "Our hearts go out to all those who are suffering the terrible consequences of the violence being inflicted on God's children in this region and in many parts of the world."
___The statement points out that Kosovo is "but one of many conflicts around the world today" and noted that appeals in recent days by religious leaders to end such acts of violence "have not yet been heard."
___Officials signing the statement included Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, and Karl Heinz Walter, general secretary of the European Baptist Federation.
___The McLean, Va.,-based Baptist World Alliance earlier sent separate "pastoral" letters to the worldwide Baptist community and to Baptists in the Balkans.
___Baptist World Aid, a division of the BWA, issued a special appeal for funds to assist refugees displaced by the current fighting in Kosovo. Relief efforts will be coordinated with BWA member bodies in Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania, said officials organizing the "Balkan Appeal."
___European Baptist Press Service reported that some Baptist churches in Yugoslavia held worship services March 28 and others did not. First Baptist Church in Belgrade met for worship, but only about a third of its members came. Second Baptist Church in the same city canceled services.
___Others were driven to worship underground. "When the sirens for warning of air raids start howling madly, we find ourselves stuck in the shelters and basements with those who don't know Christ," reported Teofil Lehotsky of Novi Sad Baptist Church. "They see the peace we have and start asking us questions they wouldn't have otherwise asked."
___"Meetings in our regular time and place became difficult to attend, but now we have brand-new churches--our shelters," he added.
___Many Yugoslavian

A MACEDONIAN POLICEMAN stands guard in front of ethnic Albanians waiting in line to get permission to enter the country at the Blace border crossing March 31. (RNS/REUTERS)

Christians said they were surprised by the air attacks and suggested they served no useful purpose.
___"The general feelings of all, including Christians, are that NATO and many Western countries have lost the direction and moral standards," said Dane Vidovic, a member of First Baptist Church in Belgrade.
___Baptists across the border in neighboring countries of Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, meanwhile, struggled to meet basic human needs of waves of Kosovar Albanians fleeing the conflict.
___Jonathan Steeper, director of the Baptist Center in Tirana, Albania, said March 30 that an estimated 60,000 refugees were across or nearly across the Albanian border from Kosovo. Many came in a traumatized condition, with harrowing personal reports of killings, looting and forced evacuation.
___"We had refugees before, but now we have a flood," Steeper said. "The bottom line is we have a real crisis."
___Back in the United States, Southern Baptist mission leader Bill Cashion called on Christians to "increase our prayers for Baptists and other evangelicals in Serbia and Kosovo."
___"Undoubtedly, one of the most heroic chapters in modern Christianity has been written by our brothers and sisters in the Balkans," said Cashion, who leads the International Mission Board's volunteers in missions department. "I have witnessed with my own eyes their courageous witness. Our Baptist brethren ... chose to turn their backs on ethnic strife in a region where to do so is not 'politically correct.' They have brought Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Kosovars and Albanians under the one banner of the Lord Jesus Christ.
___"This has not come without a price to pay," Cashion noted. "They are looked upon with suspicion by those who preach and practice ethnic hatred. They will undoubtedly be looked on with more suspicion that could lead to intense persecution during this time of open hostility."
___

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