** CHURCH'S INTEGRITY WELL RECEIVED FOLLOWING NIGHTMARISH ORDEAL

It hasn't been an easy couple of years for J. Lowell Harrup,
senior pastor of Northland Cathedral in Kansas City, Mo. Less than
a month before Harrup and the Assemblies of God congregation
planned to relocate to new $12 million facilities in August 2001,
a member called and told the pastor to flip on his television to a
local news report. Harrup saw a church council member (name
withheld), a pharmacist, being charged with an unthinkable crime:
diluting drugs of cancer patients.

Eventually, the church member pleaded guilty to 20 counts of
misbranding, tampering with and adulterating cancer drugs for 34
late-stage cancer patients. Now 50, he is serving a 30-year prison
sentence after being convicted in the worst drug-dilution case in
modern U.S. history.

Although the pharmacist ultimately admitted greed motivated his
behavior, initially he claimed he watered down drugs in part to
finance a $1 million pledge for the church building fund. In
reality, he never paid $400,000 of the pledge, and he confessed
that he had started altering doses a decade earlier.

In the aftermath of the consuming nightmare, Northland Cathedral
has emerged battered but strengthened. For months, the church
received daily calls from media outlets seeking comment. With
resolution of the court case, Harrup has broken the silence that
he maintained through the ordeal.

In March, the church announced that it would donate $600,000 to
victims of the drug-diluting scheme. That figure represents the
amount of stock the pharmacist liquidated to donate to the
building fund, even though the entire amount probably didn't
represent tainted money. To avoid the appearance of gaining from
the atrocities, Harrup and the Northland Cathedral council decided
to relinquish contributions the member had made.

The church decision to act with integrity prompted a laudatory
editorial in the Kansas City Star plus commendations from U.S.
Attorney Todd Graves, who prosecuted the case, and lawyer Michael
Ketchmark who represented victims.

"From the beginning, the church found itself in an awful
situation, not only because he was a member of the church but
because of the wide media coverage," Ketchmark, 37, says. "It was
a tremendous witness to their faith that they returned the money,
which they thought had been rightfully given. For nonbelievers to
see a church act in a Christlike fashion was marvelous."

After selling two houses, the church has made a $250,000
contribution to an existing $11 million restitution fund for
victims and their families. Northland Cathedral also has committed
to donating $350,000 to a victim trust fund during the next three
years. That money will have to be raised by additional
contributions from church members. The dollars the pharmacist
donated to the building fund were spent long ago.

Harrup, who has been Northland Cathedral's pastor for 14 years,
believes he couldn't preach ethically to the congregation if the
church somehow had benefited from oncology patients who didn't
receive the prescribed chemotherapy dosages. "One wants to be
careful how he builds the kingdom of God," Harrup said. "I cannot
deliberately build a church with money that I know was
illegally gained."

The pharmacist led a secret life hidden from even his family
members. He began weakening chemotherapy drugs administered
intravenously or through injections and pocketing the gains.
Authorities seized the two pharmacies he operated, his home and
investments.

The man's wife and children remain active members of the church,
where attendance averages 1,200 on Sunday mornings. Instead of
withdrawing, Harrup says the family has allowed others to minister
to them.

Harrup says he empathizes with those whose loved ones have
suffered. "I understood their hurt," Harrup says. "My wife is a
cancer survivor. If someone had given my wife watered-down drugs I
would have been angry."

Still, Harrup has not forsaken his former church member, whom he
visits in prison in hopes of bringing restoration and redemption.
"The activity was terribly evil," Harrup says. "My job is not to
make him feel good; my job is to make him be good. I'm still his
pastor. Pastors do not wash their hands of people."

--John W. Kennedy