Organ transplants stir families to remember
refugee family’s crisis of 25 years before
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| The Lewis family Just days before Tim Lewis, center, was to receive a kidney from his brother, Dan, center, the brothers gathered for an informal portrait with their parents, Paul and Ann. Photo courtesy of Portraits, published by the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention |
For Paul Lewis, pastor of Sunrise Mountain Baptist Church in Peoria, Ariz., the news that his son, Tim, would need a kidney transplant -- and that the donor would be Tim's brother, Dan -- sent his mind cascading back 25 years to a pew at LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center, and a promise.
It was the summer of 1978, and the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) presentation on the plight of Thai and Laotian refugees in a post-Vietnam Asia touched many in the Glorieta audience. Invited to sign a
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| The Hatch family Mike Hatch, seated, received a kidney from his wife, Audra, right. Pictured with them are their daughter, Ariel, and Mike's parents, Photo courtesy of Portraits, published by the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention |
He volunteered his Carson City, Nev., congregation's hospitality -- but only, he wrote, "if there's a group that nobody else will take."
&nsbp; That pledge card was all but forgotten when, several months later, a phone call came: Could Carson City still handle some refugees?
Oh, right, Lewis thought, remembering that signature. How many were coming? Three? Four?
Christmas offering’s machine: doctor’s entree to lost souls
CHANDLER, Ariz. (BP)–For many Southern Baptists, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions has become a vague — if hallowed — tradition, a different-colored envelope in the pew rack, about the time the weather turns cold. But for Doug Derbyshire — a Southern Baptist International Mission Board medical missionary to Thailand – – the […]
