Pastors in the News
October 1, 1999
Mission to Milosevic
One pastor's part in freeing the captives in Yugoslavia.
When
James T. Meeks boarded a plane for Yugoslavia last April, he knew the journey
would be risky. With NATO bombs falling over Belgrade and
an unpredictable war criminal running the nation, it was not the ideal time
to visit the Balkans. Meeks, pastor of Salem Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side, was
accompanying civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson on his controversial trip
during the Kosovo crisis. Jackson's delegation—comprised of clergy from Protestant, Roman Catholic,
Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim traditions—had received a formal invitation
to visit church leaders in Yugoslavia, but they also had a more urgent motive:
persuading Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to release Steven Gonzales,
Andrew Ramirez, and Christopher Stone, the three American soldiers captured
by Serb forces on March 31. "Before we went, we wanted a guarantee that we'd be able to meet Milosevic,
and that we could see and talk to the hostages," says Meeks. "Once we had
that, we knew that we would be successful, that God would open the right
doors." The delegation went despite appeals from the U.S. National Security Council
to cancel the trip, warning them that NATO air strikes would
not cease just because they were in Belgrade, and the U.S. could not guarantee
their safety. "We knew it would be dangerous," Meeks says, "but we also knew it was a mission
of faith." In Belgrade, the night skies buzzed with NATO planes attacking
targets below in an effort to stop Milosevic's campaign against the
Muslim Kosovars. From the hotel, Meeks could hear the bombs. "They were very
real, and very close," he recalls. But the hazards of the mission were forgotten ...
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