WASHINGTON (RNS) Americans feel the “Christian faith” has a positive impact on help for the poor and raising children with good morals, according to a new poll, but it gets a bad rap on its impact on sexuality in society.

In a new study conducted by Grey Matter Research, more than 1,000 American adults were asked if the Christian faith had a positive, negative, or no real impact on 16 different areas of society, such as crime, poverty and the role of women in society.

Strong majorities (72 percent) said Christianity is good for helping the poor and for raising children with good morals. Around half (52 percent) said Christianity helps keep the U.S. as a “strong nation,” and nearly as many (49 percent) said the faith had a positive impact on the role of women in society.

Although Christianity has been criticized for its traditional views on abortion, contraception and gender roles, “Americans aren’t buying into it,” said Ron Sellers, president of the Arizona-based Grey Matter Research.

Sellers said he wasn’t surprised that Americans hold their most negative perception for how Christianity impacts sexuality: 37 percent felt there was a negative impact, compared to only 26 percent who felt it was positive.

In six of the 16 areas, sizable numbers of Americans said Christianity had little or no impact, including the environment, business ethics, civility and substance abuse. Americans were roughly split, at about one-third each, on Christianity’s impact on racism.

“What’s real concerning to me, from the perspective of a religious leader,” Sellers said, “is when people say, `Eh, it hasn’t had a real impact.’”

The total sample of 1,011 adults selected at random from all 50 states had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

CENTREVILLE, Va. (RNS) It’s been five years since Celeste Peterson’s only daughter was killed in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech and she’s finally made peace with God.

Which is not to say it’s been easy.

The five-year anniversary of the nation’s most deadly shooting spree — which claimed the lives of 18-year-old Erin Peterson and 31 other victims on April 16, 2007 — is still too fresh.

“Whether we’re talking year one or year five, it still feels like yesterday,” said Celeste Peterson, noting that it’s been five years “since I heard her voice or held her hand.”

The darkened hours of night are sometimes the worst. When Erin went away to college, the one thing her parents asked of her was a call every night, which sometimes came in as late as 1 a.m. Mother, father and daughter would swap prayer requests or updates from home. Their last call, Celeste Peterson remembers, ended in “I love you. I love you, too. See you tomorrow.”

If Erin’s mother had her way, she’d hear that voice again.

“When someone so close to you has passed, why can’t God allow them to make a phone call home at least once? If I could just hear her voice again, I would love that.”

The attention from the media and the community that finds the Petersons this time of year can trigger the tears that were once in a constant free fall at just the mention of Erin’s name. In time, Celeste Peterson says, finding a way forward in the midst of grief can still weigh her family down. But her lifelong faith has helped her through.

“It is what I knew about who God is and my personal relationship with him that really kept me going,” she said. “I know that people say that all the time in situations like this, but I say it with ease.”

Raised in the church and a lifelong believer, Celeste Peterson learned early to rely on God. But in the days and months following her daughter’s death, she barely talked to God. And when she did, it wasn’t because she really wanted to.

“Thank you for this day. I’m not talking to you. Amen” was how the conversation usually went until she was again ready to talk to God again.

When that day finally came, “I never felt like I had missed a beat. He knew how I was feeling at the time. God was my friend and I told him that I thought he left me high and dry. And he told me that he had a plan.”

On the eve of the fifth anniversary, the Petersons will gather with hundreds of friends, family, and faith groups that have turned out for the past four years to pay tribute to Erin during what they call a jubilant gospel concert and dance celebration hosted at their church here.

“We’ve been celebrating with a gospel concert because Erin was a Christian. She was what I called a cool Christian and a realist. It was an easy thing for her to talk about Christ and to tell people that they needed to pray,” said the mother, who doubts that her own courage and faith could have compared to Erin’s when she was her daughter’s age.

Even as a kid, Erin was comfortable sharing her faith at school, said her elementary school teacher, Francie Donnell. She recalled when Erin came to her with an idea for a gospel medley that her classmates could perform at their eighth-grade graduation. She can still see Erin’s tall brown frame towering over her mostly white classmates as she pleaded with them to stop looking down at their feet when they sang, and instead, feel the spirited music and just clap and sway.

Donnell’s son, William, was a junior at Virginia Tech that fateful April day. And like Erin, he had class scheduled in Norris Hall, where most of the victims were gunned down. Five years ago, both families descended on the campus in Blacksburg, Va., in search of their children. When they met at a hotel, Celeste Peterson’s first question was about Donnell’s son.

“She was concerned about our family even though she had just lost her daughter. That’s the kind of special caring person that she is,” said Donnell, who delivered one of the eulogies at Erin’s funeral.

Last month, a jury awarded the Petersons and another family $4 million each in their wrongful death suit against Virginia Teach.

Celeste Peterson no longer has the daughter she called her “gift” and the 6-foot-1 basketball center her husband called his best “buddy.” In 2007, they started a nonprofit group, the Erin Peterson Fund, in their daughter’s memory to award scholarships to promising high school students.

“Erin accepted no limitations when it came to helping those in need,” her mother said. “I understand, now, how she felt.”

(RNS) A coalition of 11 Christian student groups at Vanderbilt University are insisting their leaders should be chosen based on shared faith — the newest front in a growing battle over “religious freedom.”

The campus groups, who call themselves Vanderbilt Solidarity, joined together to oppose the university’s “all-comers” policy, which says student groups must be open to all students, including in leadership, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.

The religious groups say they cannot be led by students who do not share or profess their group’s faith.

Vanderbilt University entrance. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“Until recently, Vanderbilt explicitly protected the freedom of all student organizations to select members and leaders who shared and supported the group’s purpose, including — for religious groups — its faith,” the Solidarity groups said in a statement on Monday (April 9).

Claiming the policy violates “the central tenets of our faith,” the faith-based groups applied for registered status on campus, but included their own constitutions containing faith-based requirements for leadership positions. If the school does not recognize the constitutions, the groups would be considered unregistered next year.

Solidarity’s decision comes two weeks after another campus group, Vanderbilt Catholic, decided not to register as an official student organization because of the school’s policy.

“All registered student groups at Vanderbilt must be open to all students, and members in good standing must have the opportunity to seek leadership positions,” said Beth Fortune, vice chancellor for public affairs. “This debate is about nondiscrimination, not religious freedom, and we stand behind our policy.”

The group of 11 urged the university to respect their religious freedom as they continue to share their beliefs on campus.

“Even while taking this action, we — the religious students and ministries represented by Solidarity — continue to pray that our much beloved University will change course.”

Open Doors, an international Christian ministry which serves persecuted believers, is mobilizing Christians around the world to participate in a day of prayer Sunday for North Korea.

North Korean state propaganda says: “On April 15th, known as ‘Day of the Sun’ to the Korean people, mass celebrations will take place in Pyongyang and other cities in the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). These will be colorful and vibrant. Throughout the world from Lima to Tokyo meetings, seminars and events will take place. To be in Pyongyang on the Day of the Sun is simply a wonderful experience without parallel.”

As part of the celebration, North Korea and its new leader Kim Jong-Un will reportedly launch a rocket this week which would showcase the country’s ability to fire a missile with allegedly the capacity to reach the continental United States.

Officially there is freedom of religion in North Korea. In practice, civilians do not have any rights. There is no freedom to build churches or to worship in homes. North Korea is ranked No. 1 on Open Doors’ 2012 World Watch List of the 50 worst persecutors of Christians.

Possession of a Bible or Christian materials is illegal and punishable by death. The proclamation of the gospel is strictly forbidden. Christian parents can’t even share their beliefs with their children until they are old enough to understand the dangers. Christians are viewed as “a danger to society” or “spies of the traitorous West.”

“For Christians inside North Korea their fear has increased as the government has mandated all the people to bow down to the gods of Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un and participate in the celebration,” says Open Doors USA President/CEO Dr. Carl Moeller. “So scrutiny of the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 brave underground Christians has increased during the last few months. Some have been thrown into prisons. There are 50,000 to 70,000 Christians of the estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people living under horrific conditions in those prisons. Also, many North Koreans are chronically malnourished and unemployed.

“But we know that the Christians living under the most brutal regime in the world will be celebrating the true ‘Son’ Jesus Christ in their hearts. Please show your solidarity with Christians there by praying and fasting for them this Sunday and beyond.”

To show “One With Them” unity with its brothers and sisters in North Korea, Open Doors USA is providing resources at www.worldwatchlist.us/pray-for-north-korea. People can sign up to receive hourly tweets on Sunday, prayer points and other materials. The Open Doors USA Facebook page at www.facebook.com/opendoorsfans?ref=share will also feature North Korea, including the tweets.

In addition to the call for prayer on Sunday, global partners will join together in prayer during North Korea Freedom Week April 23-29. To register to receive information and how to participate in both events, sign up at www.worldwatchlist.us/pray-for-north-korea.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (RNS) A satirical student newspaper is under investigation by Rutgers University after publishing a column in praise of Adolf Hitler and attributing it to a Jewish student activist.

An article titled “What about the good things Hitler did?” appeared in The Medium on April 4 alongside Rutgers student Aaron Marcus’ name and photo. A self-described Zionist, Marcus writes columns for the independent Rutgers student newspaper, The Daily Targum, which the Medium sought to spoof.

Marcus told WWOR-TV the article hurt him and his family, and that some of his relatives died in the Holocaust. “To say anything praiseworthy of someone like Hitler, and to have people actually believe it was coming from me, even in a satirical manner, is just really painful,” Marcus told the station.

He could not be reached for comment over the weekend.

Federal courts have extended “broad protection” to student media, Rutgers president Richard McCormick said in a statement, but The Medium article went too far. It is “particularly despicable,” he said, in light of Marcus’ faith.

The article “is extremely offensive and repugnant,” McCormick said. “No individual student should be subject to such a vicious and provocative and hurtful piece, regardless of whether the First Amendment protections apply to such expression.”

The university is investigating the column as a bias incident, he said.

The spoof states “history has given the Third Reich a bad rap” and notes the irony in celebrating Columbus Day, considering Christopher Columbus “slaughtered countless natives, raped their wives and enslaved their children.” Hitler was responsible for genocide, it states, but also experimented with rocket science and helped start the auto company Volkswagen.

The same day The Medium published the satire, The Targum published a column actually written by Marcus criticizing the Palestinian National Authority for refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Medium is run as a club and is funded in part with money from the university, while The Targum is an independent newspaper run as a not-for-profit company.

Two editors at The Medium declined to comment, referring questions to a faculty adviser, Ronald Miskoff. Reached by e-mail, the journalism lecturer said he does not approve content or see it before it goes to press. He does critique The Medium after it is published.

“I can’t explain the humor in the article. I suppose it’s more about the irony of a Jewish activist writing something that is the complete opposite of what he really believes,” Miskoff said.

This isn’t the first time The Medium has come under fire for anti-Semitic material. In 2004, it ran a full-page cover drawing showing a man throwing a ball at another man – mimicking a carnival game – sitting on an oven.

Miskoff had not had contact with administrators yet about the column as of late yesterday. If any action is taken, he said he hoped “it will be with the understanding that college is a time in people’s lives when they test boundaries and learn the results of errors prior to taking on full adult responsibilities.”

(Jessica Calefati and Ryan Hutchins write for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

(RNS) Gabe Lyons thinks Christian culture warriors are on the wrong path.

His sixth annual Q Conference, which opens Tuesday (April 10) in Washington, D.C., is an attempt to do things differently. With 700 participants gathered in a stately downtown auditorium, Lyons will play host to a distinct kind of Christian conference, one that seeks a respectful, constructive conversation on a host of issues confronting the nation.

Q, which stands for “question,” will allow 30 different culture leaders — from New York Times columnist David Brooks to Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter — to present their ideas for the common good during a two-and-a-half day confab.

“We feel we have a role to play in renewing the culture and holding back the effects of sin,” said Lyons, founder of Q, a nonprofit organization based in New York City. “We’re not to do it in an antagonistic way. We hope to do it in a hopeful way that gives witness to the rest of the world in how things ought to be.”

Part Clinton Global Initiative, part TED Talk, the conference is designed to highlight the best ideas rather than condemning the nation’s ills. Presenters are allocated three, nine, or 18 minutes to talk. Participants sit at round tables instead of rows, and time is built in for participants to reflect and talk about what they’ve heard.

That kind of format allows Q to include both Richard Land from the religious right and Jim Wallis from the religious left; both will share the stage Tuesday to discuss areas of potential agreement.

Lyons, a Liberty University graduate, said he realized nine years ago how little most Americans respected Christianity. That realization prompted him to acknowledge that the nation’s religious pluralism was here to stay, and that if Christians wanted their views to be given a thoughtful hearing, they had better quit resisting and start creating a culture that allows God’s love to break though.

His 2010 book, “The Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America,” was a kind of manifesto calling Christians to quit cursing the darkness and start lighting a candle.

Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said he appreciates Lyons’ point, but thought it was overly simplistic. “Jesus called us to do both; He called us to be salt and light,” Land said. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Land said his own denomination, which is often cast as a judgmental culture agitator, is also among the nation’s largest providers of emergency disaster relief. In addition, its members give a higher proportion of their incomes to charity.

But Q participants are not about to compromise their evangelical convictions. On Thursday, participants will fan out across Washington to press Congress, the White House and the State Department on issues they deem important.

The difference, Lyons said, is the tone.

“It’s more civil, less fear-based,” he said. “There’s more appreciation for the intellect and a commitment to let the best ideas win out.”

(The Q Conference will provide a free video stream of its opening day sessions from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and from 7 p.m. to 8:45 p.m. at http://www.qideas.org/live/).

(RNS) Bruce Boling will celebrate Easter Sunday this weekend among Southern Baptists, just as he did when he prayed at a tiny Kentucky church where his family filled half the pews.

After decades away from faith, “I slowly began to see what I was missing was the relationship with God that I could find in my church,” said Boling, 45, who has settled in with a little Baptist congregation in Hendersonville, Tenn.

Lydia Scrafano’s heart will again thrill to hear Catholic hymns sounding on a great pipe organ, just as she did as a child in Detroit.

“I missed it all. I missed taking Communion with a priest. I missed the stained glass. I missed the Virgin Mary,” says Scrafano, 55, who has reconnected with her faith through a Catholic church in Williamsburg, Va.

Like many Christians and Jews, Boling and Scrafano drifted — or marched — away from the religion of their childhood. Then, unlike most, they came back.

And they came back to stay, not just to parachute in for the Easter service this Sunday or a Passover seder on Friday night.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, more than half of Americans say they’ve switched religions at least once, but just 9 percent of U.S. adults say they’ve returned to the pews, practices and prayers that shaped them.

They’re not converts; they’re reverts. And religious denominations are stepping up efforts to reclaim, re-energize — and sometimes re-educate — these fallen-away faithful.

Catholic churches are adding adult programs to focus on returnees who often fear their actions or choices will keep them from the sacraments, the essential rites of Catholicism. Evangelical churches steer reverts to Bible study groups to help them establish stronger religious roots.

Rabbis reach out to young adults through a program called “Next Dor” (dor is Hebrew for generation). It’s promoted by Synagogue 3000, a consortium of leaders from Reform and Conservative movements, the two largest branches of Judaism in the U.S.

Several Catholic dioceses have reported post-Christmas or post-Easter attendance bumps after major advertising efforts, such as a “Catholics Come Home” media campaign launched in Phoenix in 2008.

The Archdiocese of Washington pushed to increase confessions during Lent (the 40 days preceding Easter) by opening church and chapel doors on Wednesday evenings. Their advertising slogan: “The Light is ON for You.” Within five years, the campaign spread across the country as more bishops adapted the idea for their dioceses.

But are they staying?

It’s not clear if these coaxed-back Catholics stick around, said Mark Gray, a political scientist with Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which collects and studies statistics related to the Catholic Church.

Gray said some must be back for the long haul because the Catholic share of the U.S. population has held steady at about 25 percent for several years.

“There is not enough immigration to keep it at that if our ‘leavers’ estimates are correct. Some must be ‘coming home.’ The match just does not work otherwise,” Gray said.

At St. Bede’s, a Catholic megachurch of 3,700 families in Williamsburg, Va., Deacon Dominic Cerrato leads a seven-week “Welcome Home” class designed to answer the questions and calm the concerns that kept lapsed believers from church. More than that, the course seeks to draw them into parish life, not just “punching your ticket at Mass,” as he put it.

St. Bede’s was just awarded a grant from Our Sunday Visitor Institute, a Huntington, Ind.-based foundation that supports Catholic education and evangelizing. The church will use the money to produce a multimedia DVD package on its program, so other parishes around the country can emulate it.

The class stresses the joy of following Catholic doctrine. Some of those teachings — on morality, marriage, sexuality and other thorny topics — may have been confusing or difficult for adults who last studied Catholicism when they were children.

“We take a very personal, non-judgmental approach, without ever undercutting church teachings,” Cerrato said. “We put things in context of real life.”

About 250 people have participated in the classes, about 95 percent of which have gone to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as confession is now called. Often — as Scrafano can attest — they emerge with tears of joy and relief.

Her mother led her out of Catholicism to an evangelical Bible church years ago, Scrafano said. She married a deacon in a non-denominational Christian congregation. “But it never felt right. It never felt the same,” said Scrafano, now divorced. Ten years later, while driving around for her job selling produce to area restaurants, Scrafano spotted a “Welcome Home” banner promoting the class at St. Bede’s.

“Three weeks into the class, my mom started coming with me. Now she’s back to the Catholic Church,” said Scrafano, who is sure she’s home to stay.

Synagogue 3000 is looking for similar results. Its research on synagogue life found 70 percent of young Jews are either not affiliated or not engaged with their religion. “And they’re not coming back in significant numbers when they have children,” said CEO Rabbi Aaron Spiegel.

Rabbi Esther Lederman of Temple Micah in Washington finds 20- and 30-something Jews who are curious about exploring meaning in Jewish terms and engaging more in religious practice.

Through enhanced programs and lower initial membership fees in 2009, Temple Micah has seen young adult membership jump from three to 30 in a year. Free services for the autumn High Holy Days— when members typically donate their annual support to the synagogue — prompted a surge of 350 people attending the evening worship for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in 2010 and 2011.

One is Jocelyn Roberts. Roberts’ mother is the daughter of a rabbi, and her father is an atheist ex-Catholic. As a child, Roberts never attended synagogue or church. Yet Roberts, 36, fondly recalled the family lighting Hanukkah candles and singing together.

After doing graduate work in Asian studies — learning about Hinduism, Shintoism and many kinds of Buddhism — “I came home and found myself more curious about Judaism. I felt like I was Jewish, but I didn’t know what being Jewish meant,” she said.

She found Next Dor while living in Seattle and began attending synagogue there. After moving to the nation’s capital for a job as a consultant, Roberts joined Temple Micah’s class for adults who want a Bat or Bar Mitzvah, a life cycle event traditionally marked by a 13-year-old girl or boy. Her Passover Seder Friday night will be at the home of her Jewish boyfriend’s parents.

Bruce Boling was driven away from his family’s small-town Southern Baptist church by his mother’s insistence that he go every Sunday. “Once I grew up and didn’t have to go anymore, I just quit,” he said.

Years of moving between cities and careers didn’t give him any incentive to return, said Boling, a project manager for a contracting company.

His wife, Elizabeth, is Catholic, and though a priest married them, he never converted. The birth of their two children prompted him to rethink his choices.

“I thought if I went back, it would make me a better father,” Boling said. “What I found was it made me a better me.” Now, Bruce and Elizabeth worship on Sunday mornings at Grace Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tenn. On Sunday nights, they delve into Bible study in a small church group.

His Bible once belonged to his late grandfather. After he’d returned to church and stuck with it for six months, he says, “my mother mailed it to me for my Christmas present.”

DSB/KRE END GROSSMAN

HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. (RNS) He is young and looks even younger than his 36 years. Yet in the midst of a confrontation with the federal government that could have grave consequences for his future, the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale acts with the poise of a much older man.

“I’m not afraid,” says the co-pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park. “To me, we’re facing a cross, and crosses are what we face. We know about facing crosses and we know about the hope that’s found on the other side of crosses, so we walk with confidence toward crosses.”

In the last few days, he has admitted two more men into his church to find sanctuary from federal immigration officials who want them deported. That makes three. Kaper-Dale is likely to bring in more, although he could face charges of conspiracy to violate the nation’s immigration laws.

“Our arms are open wide, as wide as the cross,” says the young man who, until this struggle over the immigration status of Indonesian refugees, was known primarily as a housing activist who has helped the homeless, the poor, veterans and single mothers. He calls the immigration system “broken.”

Kaper-Dale, whose wife, Stephanie, is co-pastor of the church, did not intend to become the defiant hero for Indonesian Christian immigrants who fled persecution in the midst of chaos that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime in 1998.

When he and his wife were hired by church elders in 2001, he learned many of his parishioners were Indonesian. Virtually all had overstayed tourist visas given out by American officials apparently concerned about the attacks on Christians in the world’s most populous Islamic country.

The minister encouraged the immigrants to try to normalize their status — but then deportations began and Kaper-Dale felt a sense of personal, as well as pastoral, responsibility.

“It just proves the point that those who follow the rules, who register, who let people know they’re here — they’re more likely to be deported than those who hide,” says Kaper-Dale.

Immigration officials have labeled the people seeking sanctuary in Kaper-Dale’s church “egregious immigration offenders” and insist they be deported, but they haven’t breached the tradition of not raiding places of worship. Earlier this week, however, one parishioner was arrested and deported. Kaper-Dale had denied him sanctuary; he had just left Sunday services at the church.

“I am shook up about that,” says Kaper-Dale. But he notes the man’s family was in Indonesia and seemed safe.

The minister felt he should save his activism for those he believes really do face danger if sent back. “We’ve got too much at stake here,” he says, noting the idea of keeping the man here away from his wife and family would create the “wrong narrative.”

His use of the word “narrative” is deliberate. Kaper-Dale is trying to tell a story, and he’s doing it dramatically, getting news coverage from around the world by using the medieval protections of church sanctuary. He’s playing for time, hoping Congress will pass a bill to give asylum to Christian victims of persecution in Indonesia.

Kaper-Dale says he tried to bargain with federal officials, asking for a six-month reprieve from deportations so he could lobby for the bill. He said he would not grant sanctuary to anyone else. He was turned down.

The actions of the young cleric would be recognizable to a different generation, those who remember when evangelical Christianity was a force on the political left, not the right. Kaper-Dale calls Jimmy Carter “my hero” and the “best president” the nation had.

“He stood for things, and those things led to his political crucifixion,” says Kaper-Dale. Carter, who dropped his affiliation with the Southern Baptist Church because of its treatment of women, was “resurrected” after his presidency, Kaper-Dale said.

The minister grew up in Vermont, the son of a teacher and a state official in charge of children’s services. He attended evangelical churches but called himself a “church mutt” whose family didn’t settle with any one denomination.

He attended Hope College in Holland, Mich., where he met the woman who would become his wife and co-pastor. He also met a leader of a Reformed Church who became an advocate for Hispanic farm workers.

He and his wife — before their marriage, he was Seth Dale and she was Stephanie Kaper — spent a year working with homeless children in Ecuador. They also worked in India. They were admitted to Princeton Theological Seminary and were hired by the Highland Park church in 2001, just after their graduation. They have three daughters.

His is a Christianity of the moment. He says he is less concerned about what happens to him after he dies than he is in “bringing change now.” His church has grown “tenfold,” he says and attributes that to his mix of theology and action. “Serving radically has been a springboard to growth.”

That’s been true since the church began, he said.

“The Romans thought they would end it by crucifying one man — but that was just the start.”

(Bob Braun writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

Standing With Hope president, Peter Rosenberger observing Ghana Health Services’ senior prosthetic technician, James Annang making adjustments to a patient’s new limb. Standing With Hope Field director, Daniel J.M. Kodi standing by and observing, as well.

He’d grown up Methodist but dropped out of church after high school. A bad marriage in his early 20s ended in divorce, leaving Doyle afraid that he’s spend most of his life alone.

His main goal was to save enough money from serving in the Army to go to college and become a corporate lawyer. “I wanted to make as much money as possible,” said Doyle, 39.

But the Iraq War changed all that.

In 2003, Doyle was in Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit when a stone from one of the walls fell on him, crushing his left leg. Doctors had no choice but to amputate it below the knee.

A few months later, Doyle was fitted with his first artificial leg. Along the way he rediscovered his faith and found a new calling as a prosthetist — a medical professional who fits amputees with new limbs.

This summer, he’ll spend a week in Ghana with Nashville-based Standing with Hope, a nonprofit that helps provide high quality limbs for people of the West African nation.

“I just want to help people walk again,” said Doyle.

Seven years ago, when they founded Standing with Hope, Gracie and Peter Rosenberger had the same goal.

The couple met in college at Belmont University in Nashville, where Gracie was an aspiring Christian singer who hoped to someday be a missionary.

A week before Thanksgiving in 1983, Gracie, then 17, fell asleep while driving in rural Tennessee. She endured dozens of surgeries, hoping doctors could repair her shattered legs. The recovery was excruciating.

Doctors weren’t able to save her legs and both were amputated. That left her with a fearful and uncertain future, until Gracie got her first prosthetic legs. She was able to recover enough to walk and play basketball in the driveway with her two boys, and to realize her dream of becoming a singer.  A highlight of her career was singing for President George W. Bush in 2004 at an event in Nashville.

She’s also visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Without those new legs, she said, none of that would have been possible.

“They gave me my life back,” she said. “I had no idea what I was capable of. I want to offer people the same hope that’s been offered to me.”

The Rosenbergers founded Standing with Hope in 2003 and starting working in Ghana two years later.

The nonprofit ships the parts and supplies needed to build legs to the National Prosthetics and Orthotics Center run by Ghana’s National Health Service in the capital city of Accra. Most of the parts are recycled from old prosthetic limbs that have been donated to Standing with Hope.

Technicians trained by Standing with Hope then use those recycled parts to assemble and fit the new limbs on amputees.

Jim McElhiney, a Spring Hill, Tenn.-based prosthetist who’s a longtime friend of the Rosenberger’s, helped design the training program. Initially, he was skeptical, saying the program wouldn’t work if it relied too heavily on Americans to build and fit artificial limbs.

“I didn’t want to do it at first,” he said. “Look, if I go over there for weeks once a year — how many legs can I make? The need is so much bigger than I –  even if I had a team of 50 prosthetists — could handle.”

With the help of Standing with Hope, technicians at the clinic in Accra can now build custom limbs to fit amputees as well as provide follow-up care.

“We put hundreds and hundreds of legs on people but each person needs adjustment over the years. If the patient is young, they might need new legs as they grow. It is a lifelong commitment to each patient.”

Last fall, Standing with Hope started a new program they hope will expand the number of prosthetics they can provide in Ghana. Inmates at a Nashville prison now disassemble donated limbs and sort the parts for shipping to Africa.

The charity’s biggest need is for more donated limbs, said Rosenberger. At the clinic, each patient also gets a bag with cleaning supplies and tools needed to care for their new limb. The bag also includes an explanation of the charity’s Christian mission.

Peter Rosenberger, who will be making his 10th trip to Ghana this summer, said that he and other volunteers don’t push their faith. But if the patients are interested, he shared with them how faith in Jesus motivates the charity’s work.

He recalls telling one patient about how Christianity gave his wife, Gracie, hope after she lost her legs. “I told him, ‘You are literally standing on her belief,’” he said. “She trusted on that belief and every step you take you are standing on that faith.”‘

Doyle said  he rediscovered his faith while in the Army, and it was strengthened while he recovered from his injury in Iraq. He now attends a Southern Baptist congregation in Texas. Doyle also remarried and now is the father of four, with three young children from his second marriage and an older daughter from his first.

He graduated from University of Texas Southwestern with a degree in prosthetics and orthotics and is currently working for a prosthetist in Texas. He hopes to finish his final licensing exam in June.

During his training he worked at a Veterans Administration facility in Texas, helping other veterans who are amputees.

“It is wonderful to see a guy walking again for the first time after he was amputated, and you helped them to do that,” he said.

And his new life is better than his old dream of being a wealthy lawyer.

“I look at my injury as a blessing,” he said, “rather than a curse.”