Iraq: Baghdad Truck Bomb Damages Adventist Church
Baghdad, Iraq .... [Alex Elmadjian/ANN]
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A suicide truck bomb, which rocked the center of Baghdad on March 9, broke the two remaining stained glass windows of the Baghdad Seventh-day Adventist Church. The force from the blast also shattered the floor-to-ceiling window, which separates the parents' room from the worship hall inside the building. The blast occurred close to the Ministry of Agriculture, just 100 meters from the church compound, at around 6:30 a.m. local time. There were no church members inside the
building at the time.

The Baghdad church has now been damaged three times over the last 17 months. A car bomb at the Red Cross building in October 2003, 200 meters from the church, took out several windows and covered some of the church's office workers with glass. Then in September 2004, a car packed with 150 kilograms (330 pounds) of explosives was detonated just outside the side entrance of the church, causing U.S. $150,000 worth of damage. No one was injured.

The Baghdad Adventist Church was deliberately targeted, church sources said of the September 2004 incident, which prompted church leaders, out of concern for members' safety, to cancel Sabbath services and advise members to meet in homes.

"A few days ago we were rejoicing that worship services had resumed at the church after the September incident," says Michael Porter, president of the Adventist Church in the Middle East. "Now our Iraqi brothers and sisters must endure another period of uncertainty."

Basim Fargo, secretary of the Adventist Church in Iraq, reports that there have been extensive repairs over the last several months to an eelectrical circuit that was damaged by the September blast. "We have boarded up windows and done what we can to make the church premises rrarely usable, but much of the building remains unrepaired," Fargo says. So far, all efforts to secure funding for the repairs have been unsuccessful.

"This latest hostile incident, while not specifically targeting the Adventist church, could not have come at a worse time for the morale of our members," laments Homer Trecartin, secretary treasurer for the Adventist Church in the Middle East. Already the church administration in Iraq has received 24 requests for membership transfers in 2004. That translates to one Iraqi member in every nine emigrating to a congregation in another country. The indication is that many more have already left without officially transferring their membership.

"While we are eager for our members to remain and flourish," says Trecartin, "these latest statistics are hardly surprising. Their daily routine of insecurity is nerve-racking. They cannot see the situation improving. We are praying that the Lord will give the Adventists a supernatural courage and make them a force of peace in this land of turmoil."

Source: Adventist News Network