The 2011 Legacy Banquet

Young Alumnus of the Year Cody Fisher ’06 Dr. Jeff Cook’s urban ministries class changed Cody’s life forever. In a weekend poverty simulation, students lived as homeless people on the streets of Springfield, Ohio, begging for money, eating out of dumpsters, and collecting cans for what little money they would bring. “From that point on,” he said, “I knew I couldn’t be content with just loving from a distance. I had to radically displace myself if I wanted to love like Jesus loved.” Cody began working as the public relations director for Millennium Relief and Development Services (MRDS), an NGO helping rebuild Iraq. After spending 12 months there, he packed two suitcases and moved to Iraq, choosing to claim the promises of Jesus and learn what it means to love his neighbor. As he spent time in the homes of people he came to know and love, he became aware of dozens of children born with heart defects. The effects of war, malnutrition, poverty, lack of basic health care, and intra-family marriages had taken a toll, and an entire generation of Iraqi children needed heart surgery to save their lives. In 2007, Cody founded the Preemptive Love Coalition, a nonprofit organization that seeks to provide lifesaving heart surgeries for Iraqi children in the pursuit of peace. Through that organization he began to send the most critical children overseas to Israel and Turkey for lifesaving surgeries. The Coalition brings medical teams to Iraqi hospitals to train and empower local doctors to care for these special needs children. “The Gospel Jesus spoke about will be displayed through our lives and embraced by people we’ve grown to love as our own,” he said. Cody lives in Iraq with his wife Michelle.