Another Health Miracle in a Jesus Follower:

Cancer everywhere, then blindness:
Every Sunday morning a melting pot of Christians worship at The Harvest, a non-denominational Christian church on Highway 378 between the I-20 overpass and Lexington, S. C., in central South Carolina. Pastor Ken Jumper founded this church along with his wife Connie. She can only hear the joy in the room, for Connie is blind. But the blindness is part of a bigger blessing.

Ken and Connie married in 1976. They started working in a small upstate South Carolina church. Soon, two girls, Rebekah and Ruth, arrived. Ruth was born in the Spring of 1982, and the delivery seemed normal at the time. Connie says there were problems within months, "We're going to the ER, something is not right." Connie recalled her terrible headaches and a visit to the emergency room. Doctors at first said she was pregnant again, but then, "So finally, the next day, they came over and they said, 'Connie, you have a tumor here and a tumor there and tumors all over your lungs'." Cancer had spread throughout Connie's body. It was even in her brain. Two-thirds of her lungs were filled with metastatic cancer. The Jumpers left their two little girls that very night and headed to Duke Hospital in North Carolina.

Fellow Christians started moving into their lives almost immediately. Connie says the X-ray nurse at the hospital was first, then a church in Alabama, "They called me every single Sunday morning. The choir would sing and the pastor would get on the phone. Pastor Stuck would get on the phone. He goes, 'Connie how are you feeling today?'"

Ken and Connie trusted the cancer would not kill because of the prayers of strangers and their faith in God. Connie was reassured by the trials of Christ, "If God could die on a cross, if Jesus can die on a cross for me, what is this? This is nothing compared to what He went through!"

The prayers were answered; and after six months of chemotherapy, Connie's cancer went into remission. But her struggle is not over. The radiation to shrink those tumors attacked her eyes; and, as a result, Connie is legally blind, "Sometimes you get into these pity parties...sometimes. But you gotta snap out of it...you gotta say, 'Connie, rise up! Get out of that pity party! You're alive, girl, you're alive!'" Ruth, who was barely crawling when her mom got cancer, is now a freshman in college, "God has a plan for their lives. My mom's life and being blind may be part of the plan." It's been a tough journey, but the Jumpers believe they are blessed. Connie is alive and through her blindness she can testify to the power of prayer.

Our daughter & son-in-law attend The Harvest, and they invited us to go today, 22 December 2002. Connie seems in excellent health and active in the services (almost 20 years later)! See other faith & health information [here].

(posted 10 December 2000; latest update 22 December 2002)