To the Editor:

We mourn the recent death of our friend and partner in ministry, the Rev. Dr. Leon Phillips Jr.

Leon Phillips was the face, heart and soul of Lutheran social ministry and disaster response in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the northesast Pennsylvania synod and in the life and ministry of St. John's Lutheran Church, Emmaus, from 1972 through 2001.

Leon Phillips touched, enriched and shaped the broken lives of countless numbers of people in our nation, state and Lehigh Valley through his compassionate care and ministry of hope, healing and wholeness.

We grieve, but not as those who have no hope.

Rev. Fred. S. Foerster

Emmaus