A Rhode Island pastor helping Iraqi Christians start a church is killed in a Valentine's Day ambush near Baghdad.

08:25 AM EST on Tuesday, February 17, 2004

BY PAUL DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Just before he left for Iraq, pastor John Kelley asked a friend to deliver a dozen roses to his wife, Jane.

She got the flowers -- along with a red, heart-shaped balloon that said "I Love You" -- on Valentine's Day. That same day her husband, in Iraq to start a church, was killed when gunmen pulled up alongside the car he was riding in and opened fire, church officials said.

Jane, the pianist for her husband's tiny Curtis Corner Baptist Church, played hymns the next day during two Sunday services. She kept a box of tissues on the floor while the congregation sang "Count Your Blessings" and "Nothing But the Blood."

Three other pastors -- Kirk DiVietro, of the Grace Baptist Church in Franklin, Mass.; David G. Davis, of the Grace Bible Baptist Church in Vernon, Conn., and Garland Carey, of the Valley Bible Baptist Church in Newburgh, N.Y. -- were slightly injured in the attack, church officials said.

Kelley, a former Marine and pastor of the Curtis Corner church for 19 years, will be buried Tuesday at the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery in Exeter. The 48-year-old South Kingstown man was a part-time minister at the ACI.

"I feel like I lost a brother," said Roland Vukic, a church member and a close friend of Kelley's. "Pastor Kelley was not aloof -- he was not one to run around in fancy robes. He could be your brother, he could be your best friend."

A self-taught carpenter, Kelley wanted to build a bigger church for his congregation because the old one, built in 1842, needed more classrooms.

John Kelley

The U.S. military in Baghdad confirmed yesterday that gunmen killed an American Baptist minister and wounded several others in a Feb. 14 ambush near the town of Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad. U.S. officials would not identify the missionaries.

But New England church officials said Kelley was part of a small group of ministers who went to Iraq on Feb. 6 to help Iraqi Christians start a church in Baghdad. Kelley planned to return Friday.

"They were going to ordain a pastor," help organize the church "and offer some training," said Doug Pettit, assistant pastor of the Grace Baptist Church in Connecticut.

Kelley and the other missionaries had left the ancient city of Babylon and were riding back to Baghdad in a taxi when gunmen in a white sedan started shooting at the rear of the van, Pettit said. "They pulled around the right side . . . and continued shooting."

Kelley sat behind the Iraqi driver, who was unharmed. According to Pettit, a bullet entered the back of Kelley's seat. DiVietro "took a little shrapnel in the back of his head and in his right hand," said Pettit, who communicated with the Connecticut pastor by e-mail yesterday.

"The driver hit the accelerator" and drove the men to an Iraqi hospital, Pettit said.

U.S. paratroopers learned of Saturday's attack while conducting a patrol in the town of Mahmudiyah. The pastors were moved to a U.S. combat hospital for additional treatment.

"Nobody has claimed responsibility," said Pettit. But the missionaries "were trying to plant a Christian church in Baghdad, and they were Americans. So they had two strikes against them."

The ministers may complete their work on the new church before they return to the United States on Friday, Pettit said. "They don't want Pastor Kelley's death to be in vain."

Robert Lewis, the former pastor of the Blackstone Valley Baptist Church in Cumberland, was also in Iraq, but was not with Kelley at the time of the attack, his son Randy said yesterday. Robert Lewis, who has done missionary work for 30 years, was in Baghdad several years ago, he said.

Kukic yesterday described the Curtis Corner Baptist Church as a small, close-knit congregation of 120.

The church, at the corner of South and Curtis Corner Roads, features a short white spire, aluminum siding, black shutters and a sign on a grassy knoll that says "independent, fundamental, friendly."

But the church's reach isn't limited to the community where the Kelleys live.

The church supports nearly a dozen missionaries in the Philippines, South Africa, Cuba and elsewhere. "Our job is not to stay behind the pulpit," Vukic said.

Yesterday, Vukic opened the church to talk to the media. Kelley's roses stood on the corner of a piano. The helium-filled heart-shaped balloon sagged a bit.

Kelley was born and grew up in Milford, Conn., and served in the Marine Corps from 1971 to 1976.

A graduate of Hyles-Anderson College, a Bible college in Crown Point, Ind., he preached in Beaufort, S.C., before joining the Curtis Corner church. He leaves four children: Jenney, 15, Jason, 17, James, 21 and Julia, 23.

Vukic said the family members have not decided where they will hold Kelley's memorial service. The Curtis Corner church is too small, he said.

"I was asked the other day, wasn't it kind of stupid to go to a dangerous place like Iraq?" Vukic said. "But we're following in the steps of Jesus Christ. He put himself in harm's way. Jesus left us with just one command: Go out and preach my word. He didn't say, go everywhere except Iraq."