Posted on 02/16/2004 12:09:54 PM PST by slowry
PROVIDENCE -- A South Kingstown missionary was shot to death in Iraq when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle in an attack that also wounded three others, according to a member of his church.
John Kelley, 48, was traveling near Baghdad with several other pastors when a white sedan pulled up alongside them and opened fire, said Roland Vukic, of Charlestown, a member of Curtis Corner Church and a close friend of Kelley's.
Vukic said he was told of the incident in a phone call Saturday from another pastor who was also in Iraq.
U.S. paratroopers learned of Saturday's attack while conducting a patrol in the town of Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, and were told the Americans were being treated at a hospital there.
A statement from the U.S. military said the Americans were part of a "religious group" but did not identify it.
Vukic described Curtis Corner as an independent, fundamentalist Baptist church whose members regularly "preach the Gospel" in their communities and seek to establish new churches around the world.
He said Kelley and about 10 other pastors from the New England area left on Feb. 6 to help start a church in Baghdad.
"We're really grieved. He was a really good guy. He was what every pastor should be -- a great family man, very genuine, worked hard for his parish," said Sam Stricklin, a pastor at First Baptist Church in Warwick.
Stricklin said the three others injured in the ambush were pastors at churches in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, respectively.
Kelley leaves a wife and four children. A message left at their home was not immediately returned.
Kelley was the pastor at Curtis Corner, a parish of about 120 people, for 18 years.
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Excerpt:
Two other men from New England -- the Revs. David Davis, of the Grace Bible Baptist Church in Vernon, Conn., and Kirk DiVietro, a pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Franklin, Mass. -- were injured in the attack, their families said.
A Newburgh, N.Y., minister was also wounded, according to Vukic. The van's driver, an Iraqi, was not injured, Vukic said.
Mr. Kelley, a former Marine, had been pastor of the close-knit congregation of about 120 people for 18 years, according to Vukic. He leaves his wife, Jane; and four children: Jenney, 15; Jason, 17; James, 21, and Julia, 23.
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According to Vukic's account, Pastor Kelley was sitting behind the Iraqi driver, and took the first shots.
"What he did was a totally unselfish act," he said. "He was willing to give his life so that people would hear the message that Jesus had."
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