Redeeming the Time

For more than two decades, New Hope Community Church and Pastor Malcolm P. MacPhail filled needs in Gilroy, California, by leading or partnering in efforts to rescue youth from gangs, feed the hungry, aid struggling families, battle addictions, and counsel the grieving victims of crime and tragedy.

Through it all, MacPhail has been the gregarious, smiling face of the Assemblies of God church to the northern California Santa Clara Valley farming community of about 53,000. Whether in soup kitchens, sponsoring picnics and holiday meals and gifts for children in poor neighborhoods, working with homeless and foster parenting programs, welcoming teachers back each school year with breakfast, or hosting an annual banquet to honor police officers and firefighters, Gilroy residents have come to expect seeing MacPhail, wife Kathy, the church staff, and adherents of the 800-strong flock living their faith.

Few knew the 59-year-old MacPhail was enduring a prolonged Job-like journey. In 1994 MacPhail received a diagnosis of chronic myeloid leukemia. Doctors informed him he had two years to live.

The diagnosis devastated MacPhail, then just 36 years old and with four children under 8 years old. Doctors explained even a bone marrow transplant — often a last resort for leukemia patients — was an extreme longshot. MacPhail’s unique genetic makeup made chances for finding a perfect match miniscule.

Taking then-experimental interferon treatments, MacPhail stretched his life an additional four more years, although he felt sick almost every day. Then his kidneys began to fail; doctors told him that a bone marrow transplant, however long the odds, was his last chance.

As they had since his first diagnosis, congregants prayed for the pastor, renewing heavenly petitions for a miracle. And not only the folks at New Hope prayed; people from all around Gilroy told him they were praying, too. The Gilroy Rotary Club, supporting their fellow Rotarian, even organized bone marrow donor drives.

Meanwhile, MacPhail connected with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Despite MacPhail’s genetic challenges, doctors performed a bone marrow transplant at the facility in 1999. But new challenges cropped up.

Weakened by six months of chemotherapy that destroyed his old, diseased bone marrow, MacPhail caught a cold a couple of months after the operation. He then had a severe allergic reaction to the penicillin he received to fight it. MacPhail slipped into a coma for several weeks, and didn’t leave the hospital for another five months.

Slowly, however, he recovered. By 2003, he had weaned off the drugs. He began to throw himself completely into ministry. His years at New Hope Community have been busy and productive, with the church growing 11 times larger than the 75 who attended when he arrived in 1992.

Still, MacPhail struggled with health issues, likely the result of side effects of his cancer treatments and anti-rejection drugs. Chief among them was failing vision, forcing MacPhail to endure corneal transplants and reconstructive surgeries in the following years.

In 2013, he awoke to chest pain and went into full cardiac arrest.

“It was what doctors call the ‘widow maker,’ 90 percent artery blockage,” MacPhail recalls. Rushed into surgery, by the following week MacPhail returned home to continue recovery — and celebrate his 30^th wedding anniversary with Kathy.

“I’ve come to realize that every day matters, every hour matters,” he says. “I didn’t know if I was going to have any more time. That’s not only filtered into my ministry, but my marriage and family, too. I’ve become a lot more intentional about where I spend my time, and how I spend my time.”

As a pastor, facing death and sickness and enduring through faith and the prayers of his church family and strangers alike, he is more inclined to take larger steps of faith.

“I’ve beaten death several times!” MacPhail says. “Taking larger steps of faith is doable, with the Holy Spirit leading me.”

Years of service and inspiration to the community prompted the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce to name MacPhail its 2016 Man of the Year.

“Since his arrival in Gilroy, he has believed in doing church ‘outside the walls,’” says Chamber President Mark Turner. As a result, he had been involved in many outreach efforts to the community. Pastor Malcolm has set a standard not just for his own church, but for the faith community as a whole.”

Robert E. Mims

Robert Mims has been a journalist for more than 40 years, including stints as a news wire service and newspaper writer and editor. He also had done numerous book and magazine assignments as a freelance writer and editor.