Dear Broth­ers and Sisters,

This mes­sage is to remind every­one of a ser­vice that we would like all of you to par­tic­i­pate in. This oppor­tu­nity involves the case of Mary Rizk, an Egypt­ian physi­cian who has leukemia and is in need of a bone mar­row trans­plant. St. Demiana’s Church in San Diego would like to orga­nize a drive in order to col­lect sam­ples and edu­cate our con­gre­ga­tion of this cause, as well as encour­age every­one to participate.

Mary Rizk is a mem­ber of St. Mark Cop­tic Ortho­dox Church in New Orleans, Louisiana and lives in Mobile, Alabama. She is the wife of Peter Rizk and the mother of four chil­dren: Christo­pher, 21; Chris­tine, 20; David, 18; and Danielle, 9.

A lit­tle over a month ago, she was diag­nosed with Acute Leukemia. And now, more than ever, she needs your help.

The doc­tors have told her that her only chance for sur­vival is to find a stem cell donor. Patients are most likely to match peo­ple who share their her­itage. And that’s where you come in…we need all Egyp­tians, espe­cially our Chris­t­ian broth­ers and sis­ters, to step up and BE THE MATCH.

The ini­tial test is a sim­ple, pain­less cheek swab. If and when some­one becomes a match, the next step is a blood test, sim­i­lar to one you take in your doctor’s office. If you are the clos­est match for Mary Rizk, you will then be asked to take a phys­i­cal and donate your stem cells. The dona­tion pro­ce­dure is very much like donat­ing blood.

Jesus Christ states in the Holy Gospel of John that “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). We’re not ask­ing you to lay down your life–just take a sim­ple cheek swab to find out if you’re a match to save another life.

We cur­rently do not have the kits to col­lect the sam­ples, but the most help­ful and effi­cient way to help in the cause is to get the kit through a sim­ple online appli­ca­tion. It’s com­pletely free and there is NO obligation.

This Sun­day, June 13, there will be com­put­ers set up before the Divine Liturgy. There will be mem­bers of our con­gre­ga­tion and our Church youth avail­able to help sign up any­one will­ing to con­tribute to this cause.