After accusing them of being spies, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has given a group of New Tribes missionaries until Sunday to leave their remote outposts among jungle tribes. Chavez has become well known for his anti-American rhetoric, despite the fact that his regime gets millions of dollars in American money through the CITGO oil company, which his government owns. New Tribes Mission spokeswoman Nita Zelenak says the missionaries facing the Chavez expulsion order are “shattered.” She says 35 missionaries have relocated to urban areas while they appeal the order, some after decades of evangelism and Bible translation work amongst the tribes. Zelenak tells Associated Press that Christians’ prayers would be appreciated. “Continue to pray for all those involved,” she requests. “This has been a very difficult thing, [as] you can imagine, for both the missionaries and the tribal people who are their good friends because it’s difficult to say goodbye not knowing when or if you’ll be able to see each other again.” Still, she says the expulsion has not shaken their faith. “We have very strong confidence that God is in control and that He will bring good from this situation,” Zelenak shares. “We just don’t know what His purpose is. But we know that whatever it is, it will be accomplished.” New Tribes has denied Chavez’s charge that it has been spying for the CIA and foreign mining and pharmaceutical firms, and has offered to open its jungle missions to government inspectors.

- Fred Jackson

Southern Baptist churches in one rural Alabama county are coming to the aid of one of the black churches that was torched by arsonists earlier this week.

Last Friday five churches in rural Bibb County, Alabama — four them predominantly white congregations — were destroyed or damaged by fires that are now thought to have been set by arsonists. Early Tuesday morning, another four rural churches — all predominantly black congregations — were torched. The FBI is investigating the blazes as civil rights violations. (See earlier story)

First Baptist Church of Dancy, located on an isolated stretch of Highway 17 in west Alabama, was among those hit on Tuesday. The interior of the church was destroyed by the suspicious fire. Immediately the Pickens Baptist Association went into action, feeding church members along with a host of federal, state, and local law enforcement officers.

Dr. Gary Farley, director of the Pickens Baptist Association, says churches in the area have worked with each other across racial lines for years. “It’s just a lovely place, and they’re just lovely people,” he says of the Baptist members in Darcy.

“The Association has done some work down there in the community with the [Darcy] folks — had a health fair and day camps and so forth,” he recalls. “It just breaks your heart that somebody would do that to them.”

Farley adds that area churches helping the Dancy church are also stepping up security measures.

“We need to be concerned because oftentimes when something like this happens, you have copy cats,” the Association director notes. “There’s lots of rural churches [in the county], so there’s a lot of vulnerability for that kind of thing. So I’m hopeful that we will sort of be on guard.”

Farley says all 34 churches in the Association will be encouraged to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity. “I’m going to encourage the pastors to do that,” he says, adding that churches are often exposed to attacks. “It happens — and it’s usually some folks who want to thumb their nose at God. Of course, God has the last word on that, ultimately.”

State and federal rewards totaling $10,000 have been offered for the first set of fires.

-AgapePress

Investigators continue searching for suspects and a motive in four suspicious fires that broke out at black churches in rural Alabama early Tuesday. These blazes, added to the five that occurred in Alabama last Friday, bring the count in this string of suspected arson attacks against rural churches to nine so far.

Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the front parking lot and entryway into Dancy First Baptist Church outside Aliceville, Alabama, as agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and other state and local agencies collected evidence from the burned out church. While the exterior was not heavily damaged, flames, smoke and water have virtually gutted the building’s interior.

Pastor Walter Hawkins, who has served as the pastor of Dancy First Baptist Church for ten years, says other area congregations have reached out to his in the midst of this crisis. “We’ve been offered, by other churches, [an invitation] to come and worship with them,” he notes, “so we’re thinking in terms of maybe worshipping with other services this coming week. We just thank God for the support from other churches and from the community.”

The Alabama minister says he harbors no ill will toward the person or persons who set the fire. “We still love ‘em,” he asserts. “No hard feelings. God is about love, and we just pray that they will come forward and confess — we have no hard feelings for them.”

Still, Dancy First Baptist members are by no means untouched by the loss. Congregant Alice Woods rushed to the church after the burglar alarm was tripped and recalls, “When they opened the door, when all the police and the fire [department] got here … I saw the flames at the pulpit.”

In that moment, Woods points out, what she saw being destroyed was more than church property. She and other congregants have built many memories at their church over the past 30 years, she notes. “All three of my girls got baptized — and my oldest daughter was supposed to be getting married here [later this month],” the Alabama woman adds, “so we’ve got to make other plans for that.”

But Woods is confident God will provide. “He’s got a ram in the bush all the time,” she says. Already, she emphasizes, believers in the surrounding community are coming together to help, many offering the use of their facilities and other assistance.

Locals See Clues Suggesting Criminal Intent
Dancy First Baptist’s Pastor Hawkins agrees and says God is already bringing good out of the tragedy. Nevertheless, he advises all rural church members across the state to remain vigilant while the unknown enemy or enemies remain at large.

The vigilance of some local residents has already yielded a few clues. According to an Associated Press report, a member of Morning Star Baptist Church in Boligee said when he arrived on the scene of his church’s conflagration Tuesday morning, smoke was pouring from the windows and flames were visible near the pulpit.

The church member, Johnny Archibald, recalled seeing indications that a side door had been forcibly opened, and he noted that the fire looked to have been deliberately set near the altar. Also, he said an area resident told him a sport-utility vehicle had been seen speeding through an intersection near the church without stopping around the time when the Baptist sanctuary in Boligee was ablaze.

The FBI says its investigators are treating all nine church fires as though they are connected. But despite the apparent intentions of the person or persons responsible for the fires, several members of the burned out churches aver that the loss of the building will not keep them from doing the Lord’s work; nor has it stopped other Christians from reaching out to help.

- AgapePress