06/21/2026
Happy Heavenly Father’s Day Pastor Al – Dedicated Shepherd. True Patriot. Disciplined Theologian. Compassionate Listener. Hospice Chaplain. Promise Keeper.
Blessed Hope is Pastor Al’s THANK YOU to God for giving him a second chance at life. As he lay dying in Vietnam in 1967, at age nineteen, he cried out to God to save him and promised, if he got to live, he’d serve God the rest of his life.
It was Father’s Day, forty-six years ago today, 1980, that Pastor Al preached, (not his first sermon) but his first Blessed Hope sermon. Prior to that he had preached in prisons, nursing homes and on local main streets. He was thirty-three and soon to graduate from United Wesleyan College in Allentown, PA.
His life is a testimony of God’s miraculous healing of a crippled young marine, who was medevac’d out of Chu Lai, who left behind his beloved sentry dog, Hector, and was offloaded at Andrews Airforce Base on a stretcher, among the dead and dying, greeted by a spitting, shouting, angry mob of protestors and transported by military ambulance to Philadelphia Naval Hospital Amputee Ward with no hope of saving his damaged right leg. Rocket shrapnel had blown his artery out. God saved him and his leg; then blessed him with the strength to drive 172 miles each day to attend – full time - both Bible college and his job – and graduate with honors, in three years. His first outreach, from Blessed Hope, was Point Man Ministries, weekly meetings for Vietnam vets and their wives. Defying his surgeon’s prediction that he would hopefully walk, but definitely never run, Pastor Al registered Blessed Hope’s team for the local church baseball league. After his first hit, a home run, out of the park, we gasped; then he ran; so unbelievably fast that we jumped to our feet, with tears streaming. He became an all-star.
Pastor Al entered Heaven on July 31, 2024, at the age of seventy-six, after suffering from the effects of Agent Orange poisoning. He preached his last sermon while on portable oxygen, from a wheelchair. He was God’s-mission driven. His famous last words were: “You have a mission bigger than you.” His life continues to inspire us.
To God be the glory.