RICHMOND, Va. -- When Tom Fox didn't appear this week on a video of Christian activists taken hostage in Iraq, members of his Quaker congregation prepared themselves for the worst while praying for the best.

Word spread through the Hopewell Centre Quaker meeting in Clear Brook on Friday night that Fox's body had been found earlier in the day. But members said they would not let their sadness overshadow the importance of what Fox was trying to accomplish.

''We were very cognizant of the fact that there are a lot of people being killed over in Iraq every day, and not just foreigners, a lot of Iraqis are being killed,'' said Anne Bacon, clerk of the Quaker meeting. ''This tragedy that we are feeling is a part of a much larger tragedy.''

Fox, 54, was the only American in a group of four Christian Peacemaker Teams members taken hostage last year by a previously unknown group, the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.

A video showing the other three hostages -- James Loney, 41, of Toronto; Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, a Canadian electrical engineer; and Norman Kember, a 74-year-old retired British professor -- was shown Tuesday on Al-Jazeera television.

Those who knew him say Fox had prepared himself for the possibility he would not return from Iraq. He even wrote about it on his Web log when he first arrived in Baghdad in October 2004.

''I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier,'' he wrote. ''Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront the soldiers? Does that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying 'American for the Taking'? No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were when murdered by the forces of Satan.''

Fox worked with families of incarcerated Iraqis, often serving as the only link between them and their families on the outside, said Paul Slattery, a member of his support group from Langley Hill Friends Meeting.

Fox also escorted shipments of medicine to clinics and hospitals and worked to form an Islamic Peacemaker Team.

''This guy was not after martyrdom by any means,'' Slattery said. ''He actually believed in his heart that he would better them by his conviction and his beliefs and his skills, and I think largely succeeded.

''What he leaves behind is a tremendous challenge for the rest of us and a guiding force.''

In an appeal for her father's life issued through Christian Peacemaker Teams after his capture, Fox's daughter Katherine described him as a wanderer, an outdoorsman and a listener. He also was a gifted musician, a former clarinetist with the Marine Corps Band in Washington, she said.

''My dad wasn't a Marine, he was a musician,'' Fox wrote.

Fox had traded in his fatigues for a life of pacifism.

He moved to Clear Brook, an hour outside of Washington, D.C., in August. He liked the calm of the Shenandoah Valley between his visits to Iraq.

''Tom's work was very important, and the way that we will honor him is to try to continue that work, maybe not for each of us going to Iraq, but we all have the opportunity to create peace in our own community,'' Bacon said.