our team:
Jim DeLaere
feature
Conce GrifďŹ n
Jim DeLaere
hunger: meeting the need through community
Jolted from a restless sleep, I sat up and looked around the unfamiliar room. Reality hit hard and I desperately wished I were waking up in my own bed from a horrible nightmare. Instead, the sound of pumps and monitors was my harsh reality. The doctor’s voice rang in my ears, “I have some bad news to share,” he paused. Head hung low, eyes fixed on the floor, he continued, “It looks as if your daughter has leukemia.” Mackenzie, the youngest of our five girls was just over a year old. But the story of our faith and healing doesn’t begin with her. Sorrow and suffering were not new experiences or feelings — we were all too familiar with devastating diagnoses. We had already endured nearly eight years in the valley. Our oldest daughter, Lindsay, was born with serious heart defects and underwent seven open-heart surgeries. While the doctor’s statistics and predictions were grim, we saw the hand of God work miracles in Lindsay’s life and expeh