wfn.org | Bishop hopes to visit Serbia in late July

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 23, 1999 News media contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-71B{386}

NOTE: This report may be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #385, or it can
stand alone. 	

By United Methodist News Service

Because of visa problems, United Methodist Bishop Heinrich Bolleter was
unable to make a planned visit to Serbian pastors earlier in July.

However, he now hopes to make the trip from July 28-Aug. 3, he said. 

Under Bolleter's leadership, the United Methodist Conference of Central and
Southern Europe has worked cooperatively with a number of groups - including
Action by Churches Together (ACT), the United Methodist Committee on Relief
(UMCOR), the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, the World Council
of Churches and the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation - to
respond to the Balkans crisis. With the Germany Central Conference, they
have supported both refugees and the poor in Albania.

"We were in regular contact and we have suffered and prayed together with
the three congregations in Kosovo, with the brothers and sisters under the
NATO strikes, with the Macedonian churches and all the other members of the
Methodist family in the region," the bishop noted in a report to the
upcoming Methodist European Council meeting.

The lay pastor from Kosovo, Mehmet Sopaj, is expected to visit Bolleter's
Zurich, Switzerland, office in August for further consultation about the
needs for assistance. The bishop is calling for some donations from churches
outside the area to be used ecumenically in rebuilding church infrastructure
and for leadership training. 

In his report to the council, the bishop stresses that the Balkans crisis is
not a religious conflict. "Its causes are complex, and solutions must
recognize that complexity. ...We are working for a just peace in the region
if we help all the ethnicities to develop. We do not speak only for the
suffering people of Kosovo. We talk always about the needs of the people in
the Balkans."
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