Pastor recovering after being stabbed multiple times

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - A pastor who helped a neighbor during a domestic dispute is recovering in a hospital after being stabbed multiple times.

"To see him laying there bleeding, to see him laying there, his T-shirt was full of blood, just to see that is like I threw the phone down, the dispatcher was still on the phone," Mia Thurston said.

Thurston says on Friday their neighbor was involved in some type of domestic dispute when she came running to their door for help.

"Well, the guy, he kept saying, 'Leave my wife's clothes alone,' and he says, 'Man, I don't know your wife, I'm just helping her,'" she said.

Mia says her husband, Keith, who's a pastor at Ray of Hope church, was moving a pile of the woman's clothes when Julius Morris came at him with a knife.

"It was some kind of big kitchen knife with a big, rounded edge, but it was really large," she said.

The pastor was stabbed multiple times and taken to the hospital.

He remains in stable condition and police have arrested 46-year-old Julius Morris.

"We're grateful to God that he has made it this far and we're asking for everyone to continue to pray for us," she said.

Mia says they now have medical bills to pay off and are looking to move.

"We just moved into that place and now we are going to have to get another place where it's not upstairs," she said. "We need somewhere downstairs because he's not going to be able to walk up and down the stairs."

Mia says they've forgiven Morris for his actions, but are still trying to make sense of it all.

"The woman was a stranger," she said. "We didn't know her, we didn't know her husband, we still don't know them, don't know their names or anything. This is just who he is, and I really want everyone to know this is what he does, this is what he has always done. He has given himself for someone else."

Morris is charged with aggravated assault and domestic violence.