Sardis Baptist group takes `health, healing' to Ghana

Birmingham, Alabama -- The Rev. Samuel Pettagrue, pastor of the 3,000-member Sardis Baptist Church, and a group of 35 volunteers are in the African nation of Ghana this week, distributing medicine and offering spiritual comfort.

"We want to bring health and healing," said Pettagrue, 60, who has been pastor of Sardis since 1971. "We feel we can have an influence on the people."

Last year, Sardis led a trip to war-torn Liberia, the home country of Sardis Missions Pastor Eddie Gibson. The specter of potential violence loomed over the trip.

This time, Sardis picked a part of Africa that's less volatile, two countries to the east of Liberia. The group left on Saturday and returns June 18.

"Ghana is calm right now," Gibson said. "In Liberia, the rebels are hitting the city (of Monrovia)."

The rebel offensive in Liberia is the most intense yet in a three-year campaign to drive out President Charles Taylor, who now controls very little territory outside the capital, according to The Associated Press.

Liberians fear a bloody battle for the city of 1 million, repeatedly overrun during seven years of devastating factional fighting from which Taylor emerged the strongest warlord and went on to win 1997 presidential elections. Taylor, a former militia leader whose 1989 power grab set off hostilities among seven rebel factions, was a member of Gibson's congregation when he was pastor of Providence Baptist Church, the largest and oldest Baptist Church in the capital city of Monrovia.

Gibson grew up in Liberia and witnessed corpses floating in creeks and rotting in the streets.