Oct. 3rd - Update from Grandpa Gary

October 3, 2006

Usually my wife Teri writes the update; however, today I wanted to personally thank every single person that has been praying for our grandson, Micah. We knew God was up to something when he let Micah live after he came out of the womb not breathing and not having a heartbeat for 40 minutes. We haven’t talked to anyone that’s even heard of such a thing. When we were in the midst of it, I prayed and felt the Lord showed me the story in the Bible where the widow kept on asking the judge for what she wanted. I felt the Lord tell me we were to be persistent in approaching him on Micah’s behalf. We never have asked for anything but we decided to take “persistently approaching God” seriously. That’s when we started emailing our friends and ministry partners.

All of you who have been pouring your hearts out in prayer for Micah are becoming part of Micah’s testimony. We have seen God answer a number of prayers to date where the doctors have said one thing and then God proves them wrong. There are still major hurdles in front of Micah that are daunting to say the least. The doctors have said:

1. Micah will be blind.

2. He will probably never have more than the brain capacity of a three month old.

3. He will be required to take seizure medicine the rest of his life. We believe God may have healed this over the past weekend, since there have been no seizures for the past week.

4. He will probably have cerebral palsy.

I wanted to share with all those praying that we have received numerous calls and emails from people that had children that were diagnosed with very similar conditions and were even told their children were going to die and yet God answered their prayers and their children were healed. We do not believe in coincidences. The chances of three people whom we do not know approaching us within two days with these stories to encourage us was a blessing. One person has been on Christian television and given her testimony and she actually came and prayed for Micah. Another lady we happened to meet at our youngest son’s soccer game. My wife was talking to this woman on the sidelines as we watched the game and the woman said, “Oh, my daughter had a serious accident when she was four years old and they had to take out a big portion of her brain and the doctors gave me the same prognosis." Her daughter is now thirteen years old and my wife watched her running & playing on the soccer field after the game. She was so happy and healthy! There have been more testimonies than these that people have emailed us. The testimonies, flowers, prayer blankets, words of encouragement and especially the prayers have been a tremendous blessing to us and Micah.

I am writing this to encourage you to not let up and continue to pray, to be persistent and to not give up the fight for this precious little child of God. Words can not express the gratefulness and thankfulness for each and every one of you that has been praying for God’s special little boy.

We love you all.

Gary