DAY OF PRAYER APPEALS SENT OUT FOR FREEDOM AND PEACE.

Byline: Daily News

LANCASTER - Some 1,200 people met at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, others gathered around the Lancaster City Hall flagpole and more were to assemble at Poncitlan Square in Palmdale to pray on the National Day of Prayer on Thursday.

The gatherers prayed about a range of intentions and ills - for America's leaders, for families, for overcoming prejudice, for protection from terrorism, for America's poor - and sang ``God Bless America'' and ``America the Beautiful.''

``God has given us freedom so we can give it away. God has given us freedom so we can serve,'' missionary Dan Baumann, who spent nine weeks in an Iranian prison, told the fairgrounds crowd at the 13th annual Lancaster Mayor's Prayer Breakfast.

The National Day of Prayer was first established by Congress in 1952. Since 1988, it has been observed on the first Thursday in May.

Baumann was the keynote speaker for the prayer breakfast, which filled the fairgrounds' Poppy Pavilion. Baumann in 1997 went as a missionary to Iran, where he and a companion were thrown into prison as they were leaving the county.

Baumann said he was interrogated, beaten and threatened with death for being a CIA spy - which he wasn't - and a Christian missionary - which he acknowledged in the Iranian court.

Once he made his acknowledgment, Baumann said, he preached for 30 minutes in the courtroom.

``I was free. Why? Because you can't kill a dead man. I had given my life so many times to God,'' Baumann said. ``I was living for heaven.''

After nine weeks, Baumann was finally freed and allowed to leave Iran.

He said he loves the Iranian people, who were open to him before his arrest.

And Baumann said he saw signs that the message he brought was getting through even to his captors. At his release, the judge kissed him on the cheeks - a sign of close friendship in Iran. When Baumann offered his hand to his prison interrogator, the man trembled as he took it as tears rolled down his cheeks.

``Don't write people off,'' Baumann said.

Antelope Valley pastors and others gathered at noon to pray again around the Lancaster City Hall flagpole, which has become a National Day of Prayer tradition.

While the breakfast and flagpole prayer were organized by Christian business people and professionals, a multifaith prayer service was planned for Thursday evening at Poncitlan Square in Palmdale.

Hosted by the Antelope Valley Interfaith Council, the event was to feature clergy members and speakers from different faiths offering prayers for America's leaders under the theme ``A Community United by Prayer.''

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Missionary Dan Baumann, who spent years in an Iranian prison, was the keynote speaker at the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast.

(2 -- color) Lancaster City Manager Jim Gilley, Vice Mayor Bishop Henry Hearns and William Thompson, from left, listen to a speaker at the Lancaster Mayor's Prayer Breakfast.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer