FORGIVENESS IS THEME AT SLAIN MISSIONARY'S FUNERAL

FRUITPORT, Mich., April 27 -- The church that sent Veronica "Roni" Bowers
on her mission to Peru seven years ago received her body and that of her
adopted infant, Charity, in a single white casket tonight as about 1,200
people gathered in the sanctuary to mourn.

The words spoken quietly among church members before the service, and the
prayers and eulogies later, were about forgiveness and forging faith out of
suffering. Absent was bitterness toward the Peruvian Air Force pilot who
mistook the Cessna 185 carrying Bowers and her family for a drug courier
and fired the fatal bullets last week.

"What would Roni want me to say?" said her husband James Bowers, who
survived the crash of the plane in the Amazon River, along with the
couple's adopted son, Cory, 6, and the pilot, Kevin Donaldson. "Roni has
forgiven the pilot who shot her. She has forgiven the Peruvian government
that might have made a mistake. And so should I. How could I not, when God
has forgiven me so much?"

The first of 24 flower arrangements that arrived at Calvary Church this
morning was four dozen roses with a note that said, "From the government
and the people of Peru." The flowers and the red and white Peruvian flag
stood on the stage to the right of the casket, and then that country's
consul general also rose to speak.

"It is very difficult to find words to express our sentiments," said Manuel
Boza, who is stationed at the consulate in Chicago. "All Peruvians had
great respect for the work taking place in the Amazon region by the
missionaries of this congregation. . . . We are here to express our most
sincere condolences, . . . our sincere sorrow and sadness for the loss of
Roni and Charity."

Officially, the facts are still in dispute. U.S. officials have said that
an airborne surveillance team hired by the CIA alerted the Peruvian Air
Force to the Cessna 185 but then expressed doubts that the small craft was
a drug courier. The officials have said that a Peruvian pilot did not
follow protocols for identifying the plane before opening fire. Peruvian
officials have said the plane failed to identify itself.

But official squabbles seemed far away, and beside the point, as this
church with a long missionary tradition, in this tiny town outside Muskegon
on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, showed that it need not be the
saddest day in its 90-year history. The independent Baptist congregation
supports more than 40 missionaries around the world with a budget of about
$200,000. Never before had one been killed.

The Bowerses preached and taught people in dozens of villages along a
200-mile stretch of the Amazon. They lived and plied the river on a
houseboat they built in the barn of one of their fellow churchgoers in
Michigan. A simultaneous memorial service was being held in Peru, and Roni
and her daughter will be buried Sunday in Pensacola, Fla., near where her
parents live.

Addressing the crowd, Bowers, 38, said he is convinced that the tragedy was
orchestrated by God for a greater end. He noted that a single bullet killed
his wife and daughter instantly, and that the body of his 7-month-old
daughter kept it from continuing to hit the pilot. "Would you say that's a
stray bullet?" he asked.

"I believe God directly intervened to spare Kevin and Cory and me," Bowers
continued. "I think he did this to wake up sleeping Christians, and he did
this to wake up people who have no interest in God."

Roni Bowers, 35, decided she wanted to become a missionary when she was 12.
She found the perfect match at Bible college in Jim Bowers, who was raised
by missionaries on the Amazon in Brazil.

"I like to think of Roni's smile," her close friend Pam Hewitt said during
the service. "It was radiant here on earth, but it must be even more
radiant now, looking at Jesus."

Mixed with their grief, the members hope that the international incident,
and the ensuing media attention, will provide an opportunity to carry their
missionary work to a huge audience.

"Their tragic death was no mistake in God's mind," said Eric Strattan,
associate pastor. "We look at our response to the circumstances as an
opportunity."

All week, dozens of church volunteers have been preparing to host hundreds
of visitors who joined the congregation in mourning.

"Jim knows they will see each other again," said music minister Phil Rice.
"They will be together again. He'll see Roni, and he'll see that baby
again. That's the comfort here."