Please Pray for this Family

I've been blown away by this family's story and their testimony through it.  I went to high school with their daughter and, while I don't know the family personally, I have been amazed at how the Lord is using them to show is power and glory!

Here is how their story started:

We (Phil and Gloria Shaffer) live in the San Francisco East Bay area in a quaint little town called Clayton. We were vacationing in a beach house in southern California with our three children, Vanessa (26), Stephen (23) and A.J (20) along with Vanessa's husband Ben and their son (our grandbaby!) Beckham. Ben's family was also vacationing with us, along with lots of Phil's side of the family. It was a lovefest to say the least!! We were having the time of our lives when suddenly our fabulous vacation took a very wrong turn...

On July 4th, our family was having the time of our lives at Disneyland. Unbeknownst to us, our eldest son, Stephen, (23) was gravely ill. Although Stephen showed almost NO symptoms except fatigue (and who isn't exhausted at Disneyland???) his heart was only working at 25% and his potassium levels were dangerously low.

Early in the morning on July 5, Stephen's younger brother, AJ, woke up to the sounds of his brother gasping for air. His whole body had seized up with his wrists curled under and he could not wake him up. AJ cried for help and Phil ran in and tried to wake Stephen up. Stephen took one more gasp and that was it. He stopped breathing.

I dialed 911 and the rest is a blur. Really, it was the most horrifying moment of our lives. As the paramedics worked on Stephen in the beach house, we gathered in a room crying and praying and weeping and wailing. The paramedics shocked Stephen's poor little heart three times with no results.

On the ride to the hospital, I remember praying over and over, "Please Lord, let us keep him a little longer." but when we arrived at the ER, his heart was still not beating. The staff at Hoag Hospital worked and worked on him. They tried everything to get his heart working. It took a looooooong time and many defibrillator shocks to finally get a weak pulse. Phil and I were certain we had lost our son.

Fast forward to today, July 9, when I was encouraged to write this! Stephen is still in ICU teetering between this life we have on earth and eternity with Christ. He is a Christian and I know if he dies, he will wake up in the arms of Jesus. This gives us comfort. We selfishly want him here but have placed our trust in what God wants to do with Stephen's life.

Right now Stephen's condition is a medical mystery! The doctors are baffled. How does a healthy, athletic 23 year old with no family history or prior incident have a very damaged heart that is barely pumping?? If you read through some of my earliest updates, you can read about some theories, but honestly, we really don't know.

Here is what we DO know: God caused this to happen. It sounds nicer to say God allowed this, but my God is no wimpy God. He controls everything and He chose to have our son's heart stop. Why? I can rattle off a hundred different reasons why that God has already revealed to us, but today, this is the reason that I feel God caused this: He wants His name proclaimed around the world.

Our prayer is that through Stephen's story, people who have walked away from their faith, or never knew God in the first place, would become believers and have a relationship with their Creator. 
On July 4th, our family was having the time of our lives at Disneyland. Unbeknownst to us, our eldest son, Stephen, (23) was gravely ill. Although Stephen showed almost NO symptoms except fatigue (and who isn't exhausted at Disneyland???) his heart was only working at 25% and his potassium levels were dangerously low. 

Early in the morning on July 5, Stephen's younger brother, AJ, woke up to the sounds of his brother gasping for air. His whole body had seized up with his wrists curled under and he could not wake him up. AJ cried for help and Phil ran in and tried to wake Stephen up. Stephen took one more gasp and that was it. He stopped breathing. 

I dialed 911 and the rest is a blur. Really, it was the most horrifying moment of our lives. As the paramedics worked on Stephen in the beach house, we gathered in a room crying and praying and weeping and wailing. The paramedics shocked Stephen's poor little heart three times with no results. 
On the ride to the hospital, I remember praying over and over, "Please Lord, let us keep him a little longer." but when we arrived at the ER, his heart was still not beating. The staff at Hoag Hospital worked and worked on him. They tried everything to get his heart working. It took a looooooong time and many defibrillator shocks to finally get a weak pulse. Phil and I were certain we had lost our son.  

Fast forward to today, July 9, when I was encouraged to write this! Stephen is still in ICU teetering between this life we have on earth and eternity with Christ. He is a Christian and I know if he dies, he will wake up in the arms of Jesus. This gives us comfort. We selfishly want him here but have placed our trust in what God wants to do with Stephen's life.  

Right now Stephen's condition is a medical mystery! The doctors are baffled. How does a healthy, athletic 23 year old with no family history or prior incident have a very damaged heart that is barely pumping?? If you read through some of my earliest updates, you can read about some theories, but honestly, we really don't know.  

Here is what we DO know: God caused this to happen. It sounds nicer to say God allowed this, but my God is no wimpy God. He controls everything and He chose to have our son's heart stop. Why? I can rattle off a hundred different reasons why that God has already revealed to us, but today, this is the reason that I feel God caused this: He wants His name proclaimed around the world. 

Our prayer is that through Stephen's story, people who have walked away from their faith, or never knew God in the first place, would become believers and have a relationship with their Creator. 

Come to find out, the ER doctor worked for AN HOUR to get Stephen's heart pumping again.  All the odds were stacked against him, but to make a long story short, as of yesterday (Tuesday), he is fully conscious and, while he still has a long road ahead of him, he's alive!   He's not out of the water yet, and his family is still asking for prayers.  Here is the latest update:  

3:00pm 7/11 UPDATE: The doctors are filtering through Stephen's ICU room with lots of info for us to process. 
Here's our next hurdle: Stephen's heart is severely damaged and the doctors believe most of the damage occurred before his cardiac episode. If his heart does not dramatically improve, he might need to have a defibrillation device implanted to regulate his heart. 
Here are some prayer requests that we would be grateful for you to pray for Stephen:

-Please pray that his heart gets stronger so he can walk out of here fully healed.
-Please pray for excess fluid to continue to drain off his chest and from his lungs. The ventilator helped keep fluid from pooling in his chest and lungs and now that he is off the ventilator, fluid is accumulating again which makes it harder for him to breathe.
-Now that his kidneys are functioning, his potassium levels are dropping. Pray that he holds on to potassium in his system.

On the bright side: Stephen is not only awake, his reasoning abilities are amazing. He asked me to call Brian (his boss) to let him know he'd be out of the office (of course Brian has called every day...), when he heard his potassium was low, he asked if he could eat a banana, when he heard that Austin, Brock, Cody, etc...were here when he was unconscious, he immediately asked to talk on the phone with them. He had us call Pastor Dion so he could personally thank him for praying over him and it was so precious to hear Stephen thank him over the phone. He is a little more emotional than we are used to, but the doctors assure us this is normal and they are not concerned. His brain and body have been through a lot and he has a lot of meds still in his system.

Lots of progress, lots of miracles, lots to thank God for!!!
Keep praying!!

One of things that is so amazing is how this has opened up numerous doors for this family and others to share the Gospel!  It's been so neat to read all their updates about how the Lord is working and how they're able to share God's love with so many!  If you have some time, I encourage you to sit down and read some of the updates on their website.  It has been so exciting to follow this family.