Welcome to St. John the Baptist Church

Dear parishioners,

I want to share this reflection with you:

Asa Kent Jennings was a frail man planning to be a Methodist minister, but World War I intervened. Asa served with the Red Cross, ending up in Smyrna in western Turkey as the Turks marched on the city. Foreigners fled. Asa stayed with 350,000 refugees. The army rampaged and set Smyrna ablaze. American and British warships patrolling the coast did nothing. Asa arranged food supplies, then set out find Ataturk, the Turkish leader, to ask safe passage for the surviving refugees; Ataturk gave him eleven days. Asa requested ships from the Greek government, which questioned Asa’s      identity. As the only American left, he boldly said, “I am the top American official in Smyrna.” He spent the next year directing a fleet that saved over a million refugees. Who remembers Asa Jennings today? Yet think of all those refugees’ descendants and what good they may have done in this world just because of one man’s    efforts.