JOHN FLING
"MY CONCERN IS WHAT ELSE I CAN DO FOR SOMEBODY OUT THERE TODAY. DOING FOR OTHER PEOPLE, THAT'S MY LIFE. THAT'S ALL I DO ALL DAY LONG.
John Fling was walking a street in his hometown of Columbia, S.C., with two deacons from his church when he saw a man with one leg who said he needed a coat. John took off his coat and gave it to him. Several blocks before he had given away his watch. Before that a dollar bill to a child. Finally one of the deacons turned to John and said, "Let's get back in the truck because in a few minutes you are likely to give away your pants!"
The stories about John Fling giving away the "clothes off his back" are true and legion. Giving away literally everything he has is the way John Fling lives his life.
John was one of nineteen children. "Our family was so poor we were not even sharecroppers. We were sharecroppers helpers. We ate what we could scavenge or catch or shake from a tree." Equipped with only a third grade education and an insatiable desire to give, John has made his life's work giving and helping.
John Fling has no formal organization but calls himself the John Fling Ministries. He acts as a one man band and gives away virtually everything he gets to his extended family of about 700 souls. Some 400 children, 250 seniors and 40 blind people receive regular visits, assistance, moral support and friendship from John.
John is now seventy-one and for more than forty years has been sharing with his neighbors in Columbia. He owns almost nothing. He does not own his own home, doesn't have television ("no time to watch it"), no car and virtually no modern day conveniences. He has, however, helped countless people buy those things.
John moves gently ahead through his day and the lives of others delivering the nourishments for body and soul: food and love, clothing and friendship, medicine and help, shelter and support, and as John will be the first to tell you, "My mission in life is making the lives of others easier."
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