A story in today’s Fremont, Ohio, News Messenger, links the connection between the sale of Jerod Cherry’s Super Bowl ring and Grace Community Church, Fremont. Cherry donated a portion of the proceeds from the sale of one of his rings to help build housing for orphans in Thailand. The Fremont church has continued to support that home. A portion of the story appears below. Click here to read the complete article.
A local church and a Super Bowl champ help Thai orphans
FREMONT – A Super Bowl champion and local church congregation are forever linked with a group of orphans in Thailand who avoided lives as drug mules and sex slaves after being helped by the Columbus nonprofit Asia’s Hope.
Kevin Pinkerton, pastor of Fremont’s Grace Community Church, said he felt a biblical responsibility to make a difference in the lives of the orphans after he became aware of Asia’s Hope while attending a youth conference in Cedarville, Ohio, in 2008.
Pinkerton was inspired to get involved in the Christian organization that provides long-term care for orphaned children in Cambodia, Thailand and India. His church, which has 1,850 members, purchased land in Doi Saket, Thailand, a town of about 64,000 eight hours north of Bangkok.
”We wanted to help orphans,” Pinkerton said in an interview this week. “There is a biblical mandate for that … and we wanted to do that in a place that had a small percentage of Christians, and Thailand is less than 1 percent Christian. We hope the orphans build a relationship with God, but It is really about building relationships and helping those in need.”
In 2009, the church made arrangements to build temporary housing for 25 orphans in Doi Saket.
Meanwhile, at the same 2008 Cedarville conference, Jerod Cherry, a former National Football League safety and three-time Super Bowl champion, also became motivated to help Asia’s Hope.
“I was just going (to Cedarville) to be a volunteer and had no expectations other than being a glorified babysitter for our youth group,” Cherry said in an interview this week. “But, God had other plans. It blew me away, and it touched me to hear of what was taking place (in Thailand).”
Cherry came up with the idea of donating one of his most prized possessions — the first of his three Super Bowl rings, which he won in 2002 with the New England Patriots — after witnessing the selfless act of a youth who wanted to help the Thai orphans.
Click here to read the complete article.