Brandon's grandparents live in Oregon and this post is about the love and support their church has provided to them and to Brandon and to all of us year after year after year. There have been some supporters who have been with us without fail and the Calvary Lutheran Church, Pastor Don Carlson, the entire congregation, and the Kurth family are in that category. It's very hard to stick with something in this short attention span world and that makes the gift of steadfast love all the more precious. Our heartfelt thanks to all of you.

From Connie Kurth:
In the beginning of Brandon's problems, Dorie and Jerry didn't talk about it with church friends or with anyone outside the family. I’m not sure when their anxiety over it all led them to open up about it, but it was sometime in 1999 during the Wednesday morning quilting session that a friend of Dorie's approached me and asked me to talk to Dorie and see if there was something that AAL (a Lutheran non-profit fraternal life insurance company) could do to raise money for Brandon's cause. I was active in AAL at that time. At that time I didn't even know Dorie. So, I introduced myself and started talking with her. That soon led to my family getting permission to visit Brandon at Pelican Bay prison. We then started to put information in the church monthly newsletter so that people would learn of Brandon's plight. In May of 2000 we held our first fundraiser for Brandon. We procured raffle prizes from local businesses and had a spaghetti dinner. AAL subsequently underwent a big reorganization, became Thrivent Financial and 2003 was the last year that the organization helped sponsor the Brandon fundraiser. (As an aside, because of their decisions, Butch and I and our now grown children severed all our ties with Thrivent.) The discontinuation of financial support, though, did not end the fundraisers.

The fundraisers have ranged from spaghetti dinners, German-style Octoberfest dinner, ice cream social, and hamburger barbecues. All the events include raffle drawings. From collecting donated items from local businesses, the raffle prizes have evolved to donations from Calvary members, artwork, pottery, needlework, to gift certificates to local restaurants. 60 to 90 people attend the dinners every year and many more people than that participate in the raffle drawings.

The support for Brandon is not just once a year. We have a small table in the narthex where people can pick up a summary of his case and sample letters to be sent to the CA governor. There is also a Change For Justice jar on the table where people drop in money that is sent to the Friends of Brandon Hein on a fairly regular basis. The church has a prayer chain and Brandon is always on that. There is also a prayer group that meets weekly at church and Brandon is always part of that. On Sunday's during the Prayer of the Church, Brandon is always prayed for.

Some might ask, why continue to pray for and offer financial support for Brandon when there are so many other needs and injustices both near and far? I think there are a few reasons. One is that while we know there are many injustices and many people in prison who should not be there, we can't help everyone, but we can help one. Another is that if it were my child or grandchild in this situation, I would want to know that my church was there to support me. Something like this could happen to anyone at anytime, and if it were to happen, we would want to know we had the emotional support of people around us. Most important in my view, is that I believe it offers hope and gives strength to Brandon. How could he continue to have hope if he were abandoned by people and just forgotten about? To always know that he is loved, cared about and prayed for has to help give him strength to go on each day waiting for the day of his release.