By Bob Allen
A missionary kid who lived 12 years in South Africa faces felony crimes related to recent car fires on the campuses of Missouri Baptist University and Covenant Seminary in St. Louis.
Andrew Wos, 24, of Eureka, Mo., was charged May 14 with four counts of knowingly burning or exploding, a Class D felony punishable by up to four years in prison. Local media report that he was scheduled for arraignment in St. Louis County Court today.
Wos is accused of setting fire to two cars in a parking lot at Missouri Baptist University in the early morning of May 1. He allegedly attempted to burn two additional cars the same day at nearby Covenant Seminary that did not ignite.
A Missouri Baptist University online student news outlet described Wos as a St. Louis native who lived as a missionary in Cape Town for 12 years, in a January story about international students at the private Christian university that broke ties with the Missouri Baptist Convention in 2001.
A 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch feature profiled members of his family leading a sports ministry to poor people in South Africa through Mission to the World, the missionary-sending agency of the Presbyterian Church in America. Covenant Seminary is affiliated with the PCA, a conservative denomination of about 1,700 churches organized in 1973.