Story number 1 for 23 May 2000

Topping today’s news, violence continues in Sierra Leone. Peace talks have failed and the rebels have pushed on. The Christian Reformed Church has been forced to evacuate missionaries out of the area. Peter VanderMeulen explains what’s happening. “When a peace process is forced on a country, and when it’s based on some really unjust things, like an amnesty, that doesn’t bode well for a peace process to actually succeed.” VanderMeulen says the war has had a dramatic effect on their work. “It has completely destroyed most of the physical evidence of that work. People have fled the area, refugees are all over, we had a national staff of 36 people and they are mostly now if Freetown. But the good part is, even though they’re scattered all over the place, they still worship together.”