Blood Donation Is Crucial to My Faith

An illustration of blood donation by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners. Original arm image by Kazuo ota, original rainbow image by Rafael Garcin, via Unsplash. 

In the summer of 2009, when I was 12 years old, a street racer crashed into my grandparents' minivan. The accident, by all means, should have killed my grandad, who was in a coma for several weeks after the crash. While undergoing emergency surgeries, he lost 98 units of blood in six hours — about the blood of 10 people. They were pumping blood into him as fast as it was coming out. Ever since that day, blood donation has held a place close to my heart.

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An image of the November 2026 issue of Sojourners, titled "Face to Face." It features George Lakey on the cover
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