January 26, 2000
Amid 7,000 Baptists, he felt alone & sad
___MELBOURNE, Australia (ABP)--Charles Costa felt alone amidst 7,000 Baptists--grief-stricken that he could not be home in Lebanon to perform the funeral of two Baptist women allegedly murdered by Islamic militants.
___Selwa Raad and her pregnant daughter, Sarah Yazbeck, were shot and mutilated Jan. 3in Lebanon's escalating civil conflict. Sarah's husband, Jean, was wounded.
BAPTIST WORLD CONGRES
___As the two women, members of a Baptist church about 60 miles north of Beirut, were buried in their homeland Jan. 5, fellow Baptists gathered in Melbourne, Australia, for the 18th Baptist World Congress.
___Costa, pastor of Ras Beirut Baptist Church, performed the couple's wedding in 1998 and grew close to them during premarital counseling.
___"Jean called my house to ask me to officiate at Sarah's funeral, but I was already here in Australia," Costa said, trying to hold back his tears. "They were a great Christian couple."
___Costa described himself as "emotionally and spiritually drained" as he attended the opening Baptist World Congress session Jan. 5
___"That night's sermon uplifted and renewed me," he said of a sermon preached by Beecher Hicks Jr. of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
___Hicks, noting many in the auditorium likely bore heavy burdens, emphasized an invitation of Jesus: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
___The preacher urged participants to say "yes" to that invitation and concluded his message by repeating "yes" in nearly a dozen languages.
___Costa no longer felt alone in the crowd. He joined others in the audience as it picked up the cry and voiced "yes" in many languages.
___"I said to the Lord, 'I'm weary and tired,'" Costa said, "and I turned it over to him."
___The Jan. 5-9 congress is the first major international church assembly in the year 2000. The congress, which meets every five years, organized in 1905.
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