The Foundling

Imagine being thrown into a garbage bag moments before taking your breath and being left for dead. Imagine someone finding you and saving your life. Then imagine the legal implications. You were never born, so you have no legal rights. J.R. Kinser tells such a tale in The Foundling, a new century story that will speak to generations to come.

Chaplain Keith Jackson saved a single child left for dead after an abortion, an act of compassion that turns him into a hero and savior to countless other babies. The FBI investigates and the chaplain's network gets into high gear to protect the helpless and shield the innocent, because they answer to a higher authority.

John Russell Kinser was born in a farm home in Greene County, Illinois and graduated with the Greenfield High class of '51. He worked for Continental Can in St. Louis 1951-62.

A 19-year-old Korean War draftee, he wed his high school sweetheart, Donna Dirgan. She, with another army wife, set up a laundry service in order to afford to live with her Drill Instructor husband at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas.

Corporal Kinser, upon discharge, returned to Continental Can Company in St. Louis. They had three children and became active in Berea Lutheran Church. In 1962, they reversed roles to achieve what what both felt to be God's will. She went to work and he went to school at the Southern Baptists' Hannibal-LaGrange College in St. Louis and then at the Lutherans' Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois.

He served his Church as a Parish Pastor; Campus Pastor in Nebraska; and as a Hospital Chaplain in Iowa. He retired after having served also as Circuit Counselor of the Texas District and as President of the twenty-three-congregation Big Country Lutherans. He also co-founded and served as the second President of the multi-denominational Abilene Association of Congregations.

Although this novel has been forming for many years, it was written in retirement on the shore of Lake Travis, near Austin. A sequel is planned. Pastor Kinser is now working on a non-fiction book, "The Modern Faces of Temptation."