PERU PLANE VICTIMS TO BE BURIED IN FLORIDA

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A Baptist missionary from Michigan and her infant
daughter will be buried in Florida after an emotional memorial service to
remember them was held Friday in Fruitport, Mich.

Veronica (Roni) Bowers visited her parents in Pensacola and attended their
church just after Christmas to introduce them to their newly adopted baby
granddaughter, Charity.

The same church, Marcus Pointe Baptist, will be filled with mourners Sunday
during a funeral service for Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter. Burial
will follow at Eastern Gate Memorial Gardens, also in Pensacola.

The mother and child were killed April 20 when the Peruvian air force fired
at their small plane in the mistaken belief it was on a drug smuggling
flight. The wounded pilot, Kevin Donaldson, 41, of Morgantown, Pa.,
crash-landed the plane in the Amazon River.

He survived along with the 35-year-old woman's husband, Jim Bowers, 38, of
Muskegon, Mich., also a missionary, and their 6-year-old son, Cory, both of
whom were uninjured.

Veronica Bowers had wanted to be a missionary ever since she was 12 years
old, and she has continued to accomplish her goal even in death, said Rev.
Gordon Godfrey, pastor of Marcus Pointe Baptist.

"More people probably heard the gospel because of Roni's death than would
have in her lifetime," Godfrey said.

Her parents, John and Gloria Luttig, live in nearby Pace. Godfrey has known
them and their daughter since the mid-1980s when the Luttigs lived in
Panama City and he was pastor of a church there.

His Pensacola church helped support the missionaries work in Peru.

"Whenever they're in the States, they come and spend time here," Godfrey
said. "Our church prayed for them all the time. We corresponded with them
on a weekly basis."

Their ministry also was supported by Calvary Church in Fruitport, , near
Jim Bowers' hometown, where a memorial service was held Friday, and the
Association of Baptists for World Evangelism based in New Cumberland, Pa.