Jesus took Johnny Ray home yesterday, Feb. 28. His days of suffering on this earth are now over. He fought a long and hard battle, and touched many lives while he was here. He will be greatly missed by many.

 

The family wants to thank you for your prayerful support the past 4 years. Knowing others were praying has been a true support and comfort to them

Link to obituary - http://www.brooksandwhite.com/obituaryView.php?obitId=378

I didn't want to post this.  I almost didn't post this, but I kept getting led to do it.  Today I read his obituary on the local newspaper's website.  Yesterday, while looking at the statistics for this site, I found that "Johnny Ray Henderson" was the second most popular search query which led people to this site.  I felt that I owed it to them to pass along the news of his passing.

I wanted to see this child live.  I prayed that God would heal this child, showing his mercy and power. As a soon-to-be papa, I wanted to know God's healing power in the event that our son has health problems.  When I read that Johnny Ray had died, I thought, "Why, God?  Didn't you hear our prayers?  Where are you?"

After looking back, I now see that God's mercy kept Johnny Ray from suffering, not just from his medical problems, but from the day to day suffering that you and I experience here in this world.  I see God's healing of hearts through allowing Johnny Ray's parents Chris and Penny to carry on after losing a child.  I see that I was being selfish in needing to see God's power rather than having faith that He will provide everything we need, not just what we want, or what we see being most convenient.  I see that God did hear our prayers.  I see that I have no place asking where God is when it should be God asking me that very question.

Fortunately, my God is not one who would ask that question.  Even though I've done nothing to deserve His love, even though I've given Him every reason to not love me, my God still loves me (and you!) more than we even have the ability to understand.  Isn't that wonderful?

Please continue to pray for the Henderson Family.  God hears our prayers!

Passing this along from a friend...

Johnny Ray Henderson, 3 yr old son of Penny and Chris Henderson (Heather's sister-in-law), will be going into Duke Monday AM (1/12/09) and will remain there until he receives a heart transplant. Doctors discovered some marked changes in him this week when they preformed some tests. He has been on the transplant list for some time, but upon admission he will receive #1 status for a heart nationally.

 

The family is asking for prayers not only for Johnny Ray, but for all the family,  as they face the difficult and uncertain days ahead. Christian, their 2 year old will be living with grandparents until Johnny Ray has a new heart and is back home. This will be a very difficult time for all of them.

Please keep this family in your prayers!

Y'all might remember me talking about my Aunt's family getting burned out of their house awhile back.  Well...a family* workday is scheduled for this Saturday the 27th.  Check out Aunt Rose's e-mail below...

*This means you.  You're related somehow, either by being a family relative, neighbor family, church family, or some other family.

Greetings !

You are invited to help in the washing and (attempted) cleaning of soot-covered item's from Ellen and Tim's house fire, which occurred July 4 of this year.  The variety of things to be cleaned include pots and pans, china, pottery, iron trivets, various pieces of glass ware, etc., etc., etc.

The plan is to start around 10 AM Saturday morning (9/27) and continue throughout the day. We will be washing, drying and packing up the cleaned items.

This process will take place in Mama and Daddy's (Vera and C.J.'s) front yard. Most all of the stuff to be cleaned is already sitting on the front porch there; the front porch is FULL. (We'll have access to water and a restroom there!)

I'll be rounding up a variety of cleaning solutions and supplies to be available that  day: vinegar, baking soda, Simple Green, Odor Band, Ivory Soap, Clorox, brushes, scrubbies, rags, old towels, etc., etc., etc.. (We've already learned that baking soda kills grass.....and we will deal with that later.... :).  If you can join us, and you have a bucket and brush, bring it along!

We have a wonderful friend who has volunteered to keep our "wash day" rganized and flowing smoothly.  Virginia is a professional meeting planner, so we will utilizing her skills to the max.   Even though his will be a "small event" for her in terms of the number of people and material involved, it's HUGE for her in her heart. She's been a family fan and friend for years.

Tim will be working all day Saturday, and we're advising Ellen to "leave town" for at least the day; so, they will not be there, that day.  They have been working in soot for the last 2 1/2 months. We're trying to give them several days off by this one-day gathering on Saturday. This fire has indeed been a significant tragedy, but Saturday will be an uplifting and fun day.

This e-mail is being to sent to many people, even to those I know cannot be there (they'll want to know about it).  Please forward this to anyone who knows this precious family.  Please forward this throughout the Antioch family, the Rogers family, the White family, the Moore family, the Hurdle Mills family and your families.  For the many of you who cannot be there Saturday, pray for success and safety in our cleaning skills and for a minimal number further material losses (ie, breakages :))

See you there or in prayer.

Rose White Wrenn

If you're a stranger dropping in and need directions, let me know and I'll hook you up.  I don't know that I'll be able to make it in person, but I will definitely be there in prayer.  If you can't make it, please pray as well!

-S

Well, that's what it looks like, anyway.  See for yourself...

I'm a guy so I really don't know much about pregnancy other than the cause.  (Though I'm quite sure I'm about to learn.)  Ladies, I don't know all the pertinent questions you ask when one of your girlie girls gets pregnant, so I don't know which ones to answer.  I guess I'll just tell you what I do know.  Currently we're about 9 weeks along.   Our due date is April 16.  I'm currently calling him/her "little bean."  Shanda's currently calling him/her "peanut."

There's so much involved with getting ready for a baby.  Especially at our house.  Basically we're turning our house upside down and inside out.  Okay, so it's not quite that dramatic, but there will be some major changes on the horizon.  We're planning on combining the computer/scrapbooking room and the guest bedroom.  It's gonna turn into a study with a futon for the guests.  The current room where the computer and scrapbooking are contained will become the baby's room.

There are also so many decisions to make.  Do we want to find out if it's a boy bean or a girl bean?  Do we want to test for this or that disease?  If we do find out if it's a boy bean or girl bean, do we want to change from our neutral room to one which is gender appropriate?  Do we send it to public school, private school, or home school?  Should he/she go to community college, public college, private college, or somewhere in between?  When should we discuss our plans for retirement with our children?  Who will take care of our final expenses?

Okay, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself in some ways, but really, a child is a major life change!  Things are going to be different, but I'm excited about the differences.  For instance, there are a lot more places you can carry babies than you can carry dogs.    (Well, I guess you can carry your dog with you inside Wal-Mart, but I don't think it will be appreciated all that much.)

Thanks to God and everyone who has prayed we'd make it this far.  Please pray for Shanda and the baby's continued good health and for the three of us as we begin this exciting new time in our lives!

From Audrey:

Thxs so much! Dad is home and doing well. He'll be on restriction for sometime, but should make a full recovery in the end.

May God bless him with a quick recovery!  Amen!

Here's a note I got from Audrey about her dad's surgery today.  Let's pray for a speedy recovery!  Her note:

Please say a special prayer for my Dad and the surgeon and staff that will be taking care of him during and after the operation. He will go in Southeastern Regional Medical Center Monday morning for, Lord willing, an outpatient procedure to repair a severe hernia caused by years of pulling on extremely heavy dyes at the stainless steel plant he has worked at nearly all my life.


Your thoughts and especially your prayers will be greatly appreciated.

I'm in the midst of doing some stuff around the house because I can't sleep.  I've got K-Love blasting on the stereo...well, I had it blasting until I fired up the computer to share this story.  Kinda hard to think and type while you've got a subwoofer thumping in your ear...but anyway, they shared a story about a child named Elijah who is going to have surgery, and it brought to mind something that happened to me this week.

I've been working at the hospital for nearly ten years now.  You get to see a lot of stuff in hospitals which pulls both your heart and your stomach in every which direction.  Still, in all my years there, nothing has pulled my heart strings more than seeing children walking about the hospital in gowns, often with a mask over their face to breathe through, sometimes with no hair from cancer treatments.

This past Wednesday, I was walking through the children's health center on my way back to the office.  As soon as I stepped outside, it began raining.  I prefer staying dry to getting wet, especially since I had another hour or so before going home; so, I turned around with plans of walking back towards the office via the covered walkway.

As I neared the big aquarium, I saw a photographer taking some shots of a child and his family with the child holding some gift to the hospital, a check I assume. The child seemed to be in good health, so I'd have to assume he was a patient who had recovered or was on his way back to normal.  That put me in a positive mindset.

As I got to the hallway leading back into the hospital (away from the children's health center), I met a young mother with a baby on her hip who was wearing a face mask.  As I often find myself doing for patients and their families, I took a moment in silent prayer for the child and his mother.  When I was done, I thought how wonderful it is that God takes extra special care of children.  They're young and helpless, but God cares for them.

Usually, after such an encounter, I become depressed, if only for a moment.  This time was different.  As soon as I thought "God cares for children," my very next thought was "how wonderful it is to be a child of God."  See, as followers of Christ, we become God's children, so he looks after us as well.  It's great to be a child!!!

Pray for Elijah, the kids I encountered in the hospital, and others in bad health.  I've got some friends and relatives in need of prayers as well. (God knows the reasons.)  Also, please pray for me as I fight with myself to be a better Christian.

Greetings everyone, and thanks for tuning in to this Stephen Update.  Hmmm, I like the sound of that.  Perhaps I'll start video blogging sometime soon?  Doubt it.  I still know people on dial up and they'd have to get the transcript anyway.  I'd better turn back now before this page gets an "Absolute Randomness" tag.

This past weekend Shanda's sister and her husband came to stay with us for a couple days.  We all went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D.  It was a cool movie, and I recommend it.  Many of Carmike's cinemas offer 3D features.  (If you see anything about digital projection, DLP, that sort of thing, they most likely have 3D capabilities.)

Sunday, we went to Summit's Cole Mill campus for the Sunday morning worship service.  The main reason is because the service starts 15 minutes later, and we were running about 20 minutes behind.  We made it on time with no problems.  There were some similarities and there were some differences.  We had our own Worship Minister and praise team to lead the singing.  The sermon was delivered via video link to the main campus, just with a slight delay.  There seemed to be more standing up and sitting down during the worship time, and the flow between the worship and the sermon was a little different.  The sermon itself was identical, as it was basically broadcast from one campus to the other (albeit slightly delayed).  My only complaint is that sometimes the preacher says something (like "both here and at Cole Mill Rd.") to let us know that he's not at the satellite campus.  Kinda makes me feel like that church is the redheaded stepchurch.  I actually felt a little guilty over sleeping late and having to go to the "other" church.  We did have the same friendly people, however.  At least one or two people came and spoke to us.  I guess it's a lot easier to recognize new people when there's a smaller crowd to pick them out of.

Anyways, after that, we headed to Hurdle Mills so Shanda could ride with Mama to my cousin's baby shower.  I sat around the house looking at the newspaper and catching up on all the old Person County news.  I also washed up all the dishes from lunch.  When I got done with that, I went outside and started taking apart the door on the Isuzu.

See, the passenger side door on the 2002 Isuzu Rodeo Sport wouldn't open from the outside.  The long and short of it was that there was a rod from the handle to the door latch mechanism that had come loose.  After removing the plastic and upholstered panel off, I was able to delve in there pretty good.  There's some kind of black adhesive, perhaps tar, which holds the plastic vapor and dust barrier to the metal door.  I managed to get that all over my hands and most everything else I touched.  When I finally got to the part where the problem was, I tied the rod together with a twisted cotter pin.  Hopefully that will last for a little while.  I was glad to have something to show Shanda when they got back.

After visiting a little while, we went to see the aftermath of my aunt & uncle's recent house fire.  From the outside of the house, there seems to be very little damage until you walk around back, and it seems to be mainly concentrated in two or three rooms.  However, once you enter the house, it's quite different.  There wasn't a single room that wasn't affected by heavy smoke or heat.  Whatever the fire and water didn't destroy, the smoke and soot took care of most of the rest.  I don't know how long it will take for reality to set in, but y'all do please continue to keep them in your prayers.  Some effects will eventually reach out to much of the White family, since it was my great-granddaddy's home place that he built. 

I have so many memories in that place myself.  I remember spending the night with Barrett and dancing on the ceiling from the top of his bunk bed.  I remember working on and borrowing their computer in Lindsey's room.  I remember gathering at Christmas with both the intermediate and extended White families.  I remember camping on the porch (which, although it was called the porch, was indoors) when the thunderstorms came up outside.  I remember playing with Lindsey in her Little Tike's kitchen while Barrett was at basketball practice.  I remember playing with Matchbox cars in the basement after they had just cleared it out pretty good.  I remember getting a Tim Turner mug off the top shelf to drink out of, and almost swallowing a dead moth with my sweet tea.  I remember throwing up in the bathroom after coming home from Carowinds.  Okay, so they're not all pleasant memories, but they're memories no less. 

Still, no matter how many memories I've had there, that family (and the rest of the White family) has had more.  Even then, they've lost so much stuff.  While it may have been just that, stuff, it was their stuff.  Regardless of what monetary value it held, there was sentimental value with it as well.  Grandma's furniture, grandaddy's clocks...Ellen's collection of iron trivets.  I can't count the number of times I've handed someone the "HOT" trivet and said "Careful, it's hot!"  Even the day to day items, though.  Just think while you're sitting in your house, and everything you touch, your clothes, your soap, the pepper shaker, your flip-flops...I can hardly begin to imagine the frustration and despair that comes from not having any of that "stuff."

Alas, there's hope.  There has been an outpouring of assistance from family and friends.  They're writing down an accounting of everything they had in the house for the insurance people.  They're getting things squared away in hopes of returning to a normal life soon.  Again, I ask you to please keep this family in your prayers, especially as it all begins to sink in.

If you're still with me, I apologize about going on and on about it, but with all the years of my daddy being a volunteer firefighter, this is the closest to home a housefire has ever hit to me.

I'm thankful the situation isn't any worse than it is, and I know that God will be able to pull them through this.  They're getting used to living different.  They've moved up a generation into granddaddy's house.  Ellen told me that they had Re-Bath come in and upgrade the bathroom.  Being the sucker that I am, I believed her.  She stood behind the door and said, "Are you ready?"  Then she opened the door and showed us how they had put a shower curtain against the walls of the tub area, and crafted a support for the handheld shower.  (The tub was previously designed for a sit-down shower or a bathtub.)  I'm so glad they can keep their chins up at a time like this.

Anyways, y'all pray for them...hopefully my next update will be on a more positive note.

-S 

My aunt and uncle's house burned last Friday.  Tim, Ellen, Barrett, and Fat Boy (the dog) are all ok, but most of their house and belongings have been destroyed or damaged.

Their house was the homeplace of my great-grandaddy, Cyrus White, so we all have lots of memories there.  Your prayers will be appreciated.

Thanks, 

-S 

Prayers have been answered. Johnny Ray Henderson is home! Doctors have been amazed by how Johnny Ray suddenly began to respond to treatments and have released him to go home. Saturday his mom and dad threw a welcome home party. They told Johnny Ray last Monday that when he could go home they would give him a welcome home party...and they did.

He is still very limited in what he can do. His heart is so damaged that he simply cannot do the things he did before he went to the hospital.

The doctors say Johnny Ray is in desperate need of the heart operation he went in to get and didn't get, or a new heart. For right now, they plan to operate with in 6 weeks if possible. If not, then he remains at the top of the list for a heart.