Adventist News, January 30, 2007
Indonesia: Bomb Deactivated Outside Adventist Church
January 30, 2007 Poso, Indonesia .... [Gay Tuballes/Adventist News Dispatch/ANN
Staff]
[PHOTO: Christian churches are often the targets of violence. The above photo is of
the Adventist church in Baghdad that has been caught in crossfires several times.
[Photo: Alex Elmadjian/MEU/ANN]]
The morning of January 13 started out as a rather typical Saturday when Seventh-day
Adventists in Poso, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia headed to the Adventist church to
worship until a bomb, wrapped in a plastic bag, was discovered by one of the church
members under some bushes at the main entrance. With this discovery church
members quickly alerted the police who sent a bomb specialist to deactivate the
bomb.
According to the police, the bomb was active and could have been detonated by a
cellular phone. Police also say that so far leads point to involvement of Muslim
extremists.
The Poso Adventist Church has a membership of 100, a number that shrunk from
around 200 original members when the feud between Muslims and Christians flared up
six years ago.
Prior to the discovery of this bomb, the previous Poso Adventist church was among
four other Adventist churches in the area burned down by extremists in the past few
years. Church leaders in the area say that the attacks do not specifically target
Adventist churches, but Christian churches in general.
"Members of that church are again on red alert. It is not safe and easy now
worshipping God in any place," said Pastor Erents Sahensolar, president of the
Adventist church in Central Sulawesi.
"This [isn't] the only bomb incident that happened [in that area]," said Moldy Mambu,
associate treasurer at the Adventist church headquarters in the Southern Asia-Pacific
region.
He told ANN that five years ago at the turn of the New Year, a bomb exploded at
midnight near the Poso Adventist Church. It was timed to strike Adventists at the very
height of the New Year's celebration. Little did the alleged terrorists know that the
Adventist believers had already observed the New Year at sunset, the Biblical mark of
a new day.
The police have sent security forces to survey and secure the area surrounding the
church. Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country with a Christian presence only
eight percent. There are nearly 6,500 Adventists worshipping in 41 churches in the
Central Sulawesi area.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Adventist News Network.
|
