As I sat at the feet of Ravi Zacharias during last Friday’s MFI Banquet I received a text that threatened to distract me from this speech that I’d waited so long to hear. “Seven news is outside.” Luz, our office administrator, was out in the lobby ushering the last of the guests in and saw that a news van and reporter had set up right in front of the entrance to the Marriott. Since we’d already had a request that day for a “media pass” from a rather hostile reporter, I assumed this was a news team here to make a spectacle of our festive gathering.
We’d been getting a lot of media coverage the past two weeks for our victory in getting the bathroom law repeal on the 2018 ballot and our part in filing a federal law suit to protect the religious liberty of churches. But it turns out the reporters were there for one very special guest of our banquet. Earlier that afternoon, Dan Frasier helped save the life of a woman whose car drove into a pond in Arlington. The dramatic rescue was captured on someone’s cellphone and local media wanted to interview Dan. He told them he would be available from 6:30 to 7 p.m. at the Marriott, so they interviewed him in a conference room before he joined us all for dinner. You can see the interview here.
I spoke with Dan Wednesday, and he told me that he made a point of saying in his interview, “Every life is precious, from the womb to old age,” but that part was conveniently edited out. Nevertheless, Dan’s heroic actions Friday afternoon are a wonderful and encouraging example of putting our shared family values in action and boldly declaring them when the opportunity arises.
I am happy to report that Friday night’s 25th Annual Fundraising Banquet was a tremendous success. We had over 600 people join us in celebrating our shared family values and the critical work of MFI. If you weren’t able to join us last Friday night, or you want to share some of your experience with friends or family, we’ve made the videos of my talk and Ravi’s address available on youtube:
Friday night’s event was also our one major fundraiser for the year. You can still be part of our 25th Anniversary Campaign by donating here to make sure MFI has the funds necessary to continuing our mission of defending the sancity of life, the dignity of marriage and God’s design for human sexuality, and our Constitutional rights to religious liberty.