Rob Elliott/ The Associated Press An East Timorese refugee mother cuddles her baby for comfort as she is overcome with emotion and openly weaps upon her arrival at the Dili airport in East Timor.

In 1993 Tom Fisher was sitting in his Athens home when the phone rang. The voice on the other end was Gordon Ringenberg, a man who 20 years earlier tore up a worship service bulletin and stormed out of a church in San Francisco where the Rev. Fisher was preaching about peacemaking and speaking against the Vietnam War.

"I violently reacted to some of the progressive thoughts of Tom Fisher and peacemakers," said Ringenberg, a Vietnam veteran.

But something in Fisher's message got him wondering where the reverend's ideas were coming from. Ringenberg found himself at a spiritual crossroads - how could he accept a peacemaking theology after returning from war?

After not speaking for two decades, Ringenberg called to apologize to Fisher, who was preaching at the First Presbyterian Church in Athens.

For two weeks in August, Ringenberg again found himself in a war zone. But this time he was trying to make peace. He was part of a team of religious leaders helping to monitor the referendum on East Timor's independence from Indonesia.

The southeast Asian island and former Portuguese colony voted for independence in August after nearly 25 years of rule by Indonesia which annexed the island in 1975.

Following the vote, anti-independence militias supported by the Indonesian government wreaked havoc on East Timorese villagers. About one-third of the territory's people fled or were driven from their homes during the violence. An Australian-led United Nations peacekeeping force has been trying to contain the violence.

The Associated Press reported Indonesian lawmakers agreed yesterday to accept the results of East Timor's independence referendum. Some fear the Indonesian vote will trigger a fresh rampage by the militias.

Ringenberg's personal transformation and his involvement in East Timor signal a religious community that is increasingly proactive in social justice issues and even in international affairs. The religious community has been at the forefront of many advocacy movements during the last 20 years. After the Vietnam War, the focus shifted to domestic concerns.

But increasingly, groups are once again traveling abroad. One reason religious groups are going overseas is to support others who share their faith. East Timor is mostly Christian, and it was a Christian church in East Timor that asked for part of the UN election monitoring team to come from a church.

The Presbyterian Church is active in political affairs and was the first to take a stand on the situation in East Timor, calling for self-determination for the occupied nation.

In 1993, the Church's general assembly passed legislation asking the United States to support UN resolutions that would have banned arms sales to the government of Indonesia which had allegedly been committing atrocities in East Timor.

Miriam Young is the executive director of the Asia Pacific Center, an advocacy group in Washington that organized Ringenberg's trip to East Timor.

"People's religious beliefs and values should lead them to working for social justice not just in this country but throughout the world," she said.

Ringenberg said he now believes social justice is at the heart of Christianity. It was the Rev. Tom Fisher, the former pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Athens, who encouraged Ringenberg to broaden his views.

"The Bible speaks of God in two ways," Fisher said. "He is omnipotent, omniscent, all of those things separating God from the world. That aspect of God has been overemphasized to the detriment of the other side. He is also reaching out toward humankind. Those who stand alone are not effective today."

Before the Aug. 30 vote, Ringenberg witnessed demonstrations that turned violent in the streets of Dili, the capital. The family of a man shot to death sought shelter in the home where Ringenberg and his team were staying. Other Timorese families came, and they ate and talked together. They were still there when the election monitors left. Ringenberg worries for their safety.

"Those who associated with us are under great risk," he said, explaining that many Timorese are also members of anti-independence militias. "I'm very worried about it."