The Des Moines Register- “Missionary back to work despite injury”:

Battered, maybe, but not broken.

John Leonard’s work is not done yet.

Leonard, 47, a longtime member of and missionary for the Saylorville Baptist Church north of Des Moines, was shot at close range by two gunmen outside his mission church in Brazil on July 3, 2005. He is paralyzed from his armpits down.

Yet he plans to return to Brazil - and leave the people who helped him recover in Des Moines - to carry on his work.

“The gunmen failed,” Leonard said Sunday before a church service in his honor. “They didn’t succeed. I’m still here. I’m not dead yet, which means I’m still a missionary, and have work to do.”

Leonard was shot in the face, arm, back and neck after giving a sermon in Alagoas, Brazil. At Iowa Methodist Medical Center’s intensive care unit, he slipped in and out of consciousness after six days and was in a coma. Now that his condition has improved, Leonard wants to return to Brazil. His doctors don’t recommend it.

“They said, ‘Is it nicer than here?’ I said, ‘No.’ They asked, ‘Are the hospitals better than here?’ No. ‘Well, why do you want to go?’ ” Leonard said. “My heart is in Brazil, and I treasure the lost souls of Brazil.”

Technorati Tags: John Leonard, Baptist Mid-Missions, Brazil

^{HT: Kevin Mungons}

More up-to-date info at http://johnleonardinfo.blogspot.com/

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