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Warlord takes six missionaries hostage on Guadalcanal
Solomon Islands warlord Harold Keke has reportedly killed at least 50 people the last year, and 20 in the last month, the AFP news agency reports. Several people murdered were his own supporters.

Now Keke is holding hostage six missionaries from the Melanesian Brotherhood, part of the Anglican Church of Melanesia.

"The recent report from someone who managed to escape from the camp is that the six brothers are still alive but held as prisoners," Archbishop Ellison Pago said in a press release. "The Head Brother and I agree that we must do two things: to ask friends far and near to pray for the safety and release of the Brothers, and for me to communicate with the militants to establish some form of understanding which will lead to a possible immediate release of the six brothers."

Ministry Matters, a publication of the Anglican Church of Canada, recently published an article about the Melanesian Brotherhood and the other three related religious communities. "This is real evangelism that goes on largely unsung, unfinanced, undocumented," wrote Richard Carter.

These evangelists walk the roads with bare feet and no money. These are evangelists whom people can welcome in their homes like returning sons or daughters, who will share whatever food there is and who will sleep on a mat and help hoe the garden, catch the fish or repair the roof. These are the evangelists who will come whenever they are called to pray for the sick, solve a village dispute, calm down a husband who is drunk. And when they visit, they bring a sense of goodness, the sense that something better is possible.

Keke reportedly told the Solomon Islands government why he took the missionaries hostage, but that reason isn't being made public. It's unclear if there have been political or monetary demands.

Details are emerging about Todd Bair, one of seven Americans killed in Monday's bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A retired Army captain, Bair was in the country as a contractor training Saudi national workers.

His wife, Samantha, said that the two would regularly communicate through e-mailed Scripture. "He would write, 'I can't tell you what's going on but if you look at this Scripture, then this Scripture and that scripture, you'll know what's taking place,' " she told The News Chief of Winter Haven, Florida. But the most interesting details come from his mother, Emmy Thompson. The News Chief's William Bygrave writes:

Bair's relationship with his boys was such that his mother said he visited a Muslim-owned jewelry store in Riyadh and commissioned to have three gold fish signs made for him and the boys to wear on gold chains.

"He went back to the store and the owner asked what that was about," Mrs. Thompson said. "'It is just something special between me and my boys, Bair (told him).'"

She explained that in Jesus' time when Christians were being persecuted, they would draw the sign of a fish in the sand and Christians would know if they were talking with another Christian.

She said the jeweler was so impressed he made other gold fish to put in his window, but they were soon sold out.

1. A new mission | Gracia Burnham talks about life with her children, without her husband, and the dark days of captivity that tested—and proved testament to—her faith (The Wichita Eagle)
   
   
2. In Gracia's words | Gracia Burnham's new book, recounting her ordeal as she and husband, Martin, became hostages in the Philippines, should provide inspiration to millions (The Wichita Eagle)
   
   

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May (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47