Nearly four years after learning he had ALS, Lawrence County Common Pleas Court Judge D. Scott Bowling, 50, who founded the medical mission trip organization Jeremiah 38 Ministries with his wife Donna, died July 31.

Appointed to the bench in 2007 by then-Gov. Ted Strickland, Judge Bowling was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2014. He began his professional career as a medical technologist, working at a southern Ohio hospital before attending law school. In 1997, he received his law degree from Capital Law School and practiced law for 10 years in Ironton before his judicial appointment.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis – better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – is a motor neuron disease characterized by rapidly progressive weakness where the motor nerves die, followed by the loss of muscle function. ALS affects the arms, hands, legs, breathing, swallowing, and speech. There is no cure.

Judge Bowling chronicled the spiritual lessons he learned after his diagnosis in his 2015 book “Does God Want Me Dead?: A Biblical Perspective on Pain, Suffering, Disease, and Death.”

The book’s “About the Author” section describes the ministry, which was founded in 2010.

“The ministry’s objectives are to come alongside and help foreign missionaries and foreign national pastors. Typically, Jeremiah 38 Ministries will organize and take short-term medical mission trips, working with these missionaries and pastors, in an effort to evangelize and provide basic health care in several developing countries. Scott and Donna have traveled on more than 15 short-term missionary journeys. The destinations include Honduras, Peru, Nicaragua, China, and Mexico, providing assistance and support to more than two-dozen missionaries and/or foreign national pastors. Also, Jeremiah 38 Ministries provides assistance to youth in Southern Ohio through various outreach and mentoring programs.”

Services will be at 11 a.m. Aug. 5 at the Oakland Chapel Church, 5652 County Road 19, Kitts Hill, Ohio. The Phillips Funeral Home of Ironton is assisting with arrangements.