Lance Gersbach

An Australian Seventh-day Adventist Church missionary has been beheaded in the volatile Solomon Islands, according to the Adventist News Network (ANN).

The ANN said Lance Gersbach (60), business manager at Atoifi Adventist Hospital, "was murdered (Sunday) May 18" in Atoifi, located on Malaita, 130 kilometres (80 miles) east of the Solomon Islands' capital Honiara.

Police investigators said the attack took place not far from the hospital but down a steep slope hidden from view. "Information we have is that he was beheaded with a sharp bush knife," said a police spokesman quoted by Reuters news agency.

No one has claimed responsibility for the murder of Gersbach who reportedly was to find a way for the mission station to do more to support itself since he arrived there in February this year with his family.

Gersbach moved to Atoifi, home to about 3,000 Seventh Day Adventists, for a year with his wife and two young daughters. One of the first steps was to build a new mission shop, a trade store stocking the basic necessities for life in the villages of Malaita, The New Zealand Herald newspaper reported.

However the tribe and traditional custodians of the land did not feel the arrangements made by the Church for leasing were adequate or fair, the newspaper said.

It quoted police and church officials in the islands as being "almost certain that this was behind the beheading of the softly- spoken Australian," who had also worked for three years at the Sopas Hospital in Papua New Guinea.

However local tribal chiefs have pledged full support for the investigation, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said.

This is the second time a Seventh Day Adventist Church worker has been beheaded in the Solomon Islands in less than a year, The New Zealand Herald reported. Last September, a deacon in his early 40s, Martin Reuben, was reportedly found by his wife decapitated on a beach.

"The church is in a state of shock," said Barry Oliver, general secretary for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific. "To family, colleagues and staff at Atoifi Hospital, we pledge ourselves at this time to give all that is needed. They are in our prayers," he told ANN.

The church, in cooperation with the Australian High Commission in the Solomons, has charted a plane to bring Lance's wife, Jean, a nurse their two daughters Louise, aged 11, and Anita, 8, to the capital, Honiara, ANN said.

In addition the church was also sending a counselor to Honiara, while police detectives were on their way to investigate the scene.

"We're doing all we can to support Lance's family and the staff members at Atoifi," said Bronwyn Mison, communication director for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific.

"Lance had a keen interest in helping others," she told ANN. "He served at our former Sopas Adventist Hospital in Papua New Guinea for three years."

"The murder has again focused attention on the Solomons, where the Government is bankrupt, many services have collapsed and whole areas are considered lawless," the New Zealand Herald observed referring to ethnic strife and other conflicts.

Yet politicians made clear they were they were shocked and outraged about the killing. "The whole thing is horrific and completely baffling," the BBC quoted East Kwaio member of parliament Alfred Sasako as saying.

"It has taken the whole lot of us by shock and surprise. "He was a man of very few words, you would have to be straight out of a psychiatric hospital to attack him in the way he was." Meanwhile Gersbach's death has also shocked New Zealand, where he had a successful accounting practice in Newcastle, New South Wales and worked at the Auckland Adventist Hospital in St Heliers from 1992 to 1994.

Friends and former neighbors told New Zealand media that he was a man who loved sport, especially cricket and running, was willing to help the neighborhood and was deeply committed to his Christian faith.