THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 2, 1995 TAG: 9510020034
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN
STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
A fat, orange flame flickered from the golden torch in Pat Robertson's hands Sunday as he handed the 3-foot light to Olympic gold medal winner Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
With that simple gesture, Joyner-Kersee, flanked by two other Olympians, set out from beneath the Cape Henry Cross carrying the torch that is a symbol in Robertson's crusade to convert 500 million people worldwide to Christianity.
Joyner-Kersee, a three-time gold medal winner, Chandra Cheeseborough, who won two gold medals and a silver in the 1994 Olympic games, and Madeline Manning Mims, a member of four Olympic track teams, jogged off to the applause of about 150 people who attended the ceremony.
Accompanying them were Andre Cason, a Virginia Beach resident who holds the world record for the 60-meter dash and who is a contender for the 1996 Olympics, and Dr. Lael Melville, a psychologist who runs to raise money for ministries.
Aided by 16 runners from The Christian Broadcasting Network, the athletes took turns carrying the flame along city streets, watched by an entourage of police cars.
Twenty miles later they arrived in front of CBN headquarters, touched the torch to the Eternal Flame and brought to an official end RevivalFest '95, CBN's weeklong celebration of the Gospel led by some of the nation's most widely known evangelists.
The torch lighting also signified the beginning of a much bigger task: World Reach, CBN's five-year campaign to convert a half billion people to Christianity. The flame will be the 24-hour symbol of that ongoing effort.
Robertson chose Cape Henry for the torch-lighting ceremony because of its tradition in American religious life. On April 25, 1607, a group of 104 settlers and 40 seamen landed on the shores of Cape Henry, and three days later, they planted a cross brought from England. Later they would found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
``We are here where it happened,'' Robertson said, in a moment of prayer shortly after the runners had departed.
And then jokingly, he added, ``My wife and I want very badly to run with them, but we would not want to show them up on a Sunday.''
The audience then heard from Luis Bush who is helping CBN's worldwide ministry. He spoke of the ``100 gateway'' cities - from Mogadishu to Abu Dhabi - that are considered key to helping the network spread its message. Most of the cities in the gateway list are officially Islamic, Buddhist or atheistic.
To measure progress, Robertson said, the ministry will rely on churches in host countries to keep track of people who profess to the Christian faith.
Efforts to track conversion also will be made using standard marketing techniques.
He said that in many South American and African countries tens of thousands of previously indifferent people claim to have professed their faith in Jesus Christ after intense, CBN-sponsored campaigns to spread the Gospel took place. ILLUSTRATION: MOTOYA NAKAMURA
Staff
Olympic notables Chandra Cheeseborough, left, and Madeline Manning
Mims, right, joined Dr. Lael Melville, a psychologist who runs to
raise money for ministries, in relaying a torch from Cape Henry to
CBN's headquarters in Virginia Beach. The torch symbolically lights
the end of a revival and the beginning of a worldwide conversion
ministry.
by CNB