Title: Family Calls Off Search for Lutheran Youth Ministry Director ELCA NEWS SERVICE
July 26, 2006
Family Calls Off Search for Lutheran Youth Ministry Director 06-111-KH*
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- On the evening of July 23 the family of Jon Francis, youth ministry director, Ascension Lutheran Church, Ogden, Utah, decided to call off the search for Francis who went missing July 15 in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains.
Francis, 24, left the Luther Heights Bible Camp near Ketchum, Idaho, where he was serving as assistant program director this summer, to hike the nearly 10,000-foot Grand Mogul Mountain but did not return later that evening as expected. Co- workers reported him missing the next day. After reaching the summit of Grand Mogul on his solo day hike, searchers found that Francis signed a log sheet with his name and "Glory to God," The Associated Press reported. Searchers do not know what happened to him on the way down.
A native of Stillwater, Minn., Francis graduated from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D., in 2004. Augustana College is one of 28 colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
According to a Luther Heights Bible Camp news release, the Francis family held a worship service at Redfish Lake July 23 near the Grand Mogul hiking area and visited Luther Heights Bible Camp, where Francis was a counselor the past four summers. The family plans to visit Ascension Lutheran Church before returning to Minnesota.
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Information on the search for Jon Francis is at http://www.ascensionlutheranogden.org/events/JonFrancis.html and http://www.lutherheights.org/jonfrancis.htm on the Web.
*Katherine R. Hinck is a senior journalism and religion major at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D. This summer she is an intern with the ELCA News Service. Information was provided by The Associated Press and St. Paul Pioneer Press.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog