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When Jackie’s oldest son was born, a medical emergency resulted in him being placed in the NICU. As doctors were doing everything they could, Jackie and her husband signed numerous permission forms approving various drugs that might help him.
Finally, they were told that everything possible had been done. They called their pastor and asked him to come. At eleven o’clock in the evening, little Christian surrounded by a web of tubes and wires, was baptized. As the waters of baptism touched his head, a steady beeping began.
Turning at the sound, the nurse said with surprise, “His oxygen levels are rising.” Jackie and Terry retired to their nearby room to sleep. Jackie said, “During and after Christian’s baptism I felt a sense of peace. This was in God’s hands now.” The next morning, a nurse urged them to follow her. When they walked in, they found Christian breathing on his own for the first time. Already people of faith, Jackie and Terry were in awe of God’s claim of Christian at the moment of his baptism and the answer to the prayers of many.
After their miracle baby, they welcomed two more wonderful children. Jackie and Terry continued on in their faith walk, joining Good Shepherd in 2002. Jackie served in the Wednesday After School Program and as part of VBS. Their children participated in First Communion instruction and confirmation. As the children grew past these faith milestones, the Kings continued their life of prayer but their attendance at worship became less regular.
Then, just months after retiring from 30 years of teaching in Special School District, Jackie left a routine doctor’s appointment learning that something with her blood work wasn’t right. Within days of further testing, she was told to call Terry and have him drive her directly to the ER. Jackie was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. She would spend the next nine weeks at the Siteman Center at Barnes Jewish where she underwent the first-of-its-kind engineered stem cell transplant, which amazingly left her with no host/graft complications. Immediately following her diagnosis, Jackie’s husband reached out to Good Shepherd for prayer, to which they received that, and more. Pastor Varinia arrived with assurances of God’s love and of His and Good Shepherd’s care for Jackie.
“Pastor Varinia was a Godsend to me and my husband during this difficult time,” Jackie remarks. “She visited us both at the hospital and at home, prayed with us, and even brought communion.” Other members of the Care and Visitation Team also came to visit with flowers from the altar and became a new set of Good Shepherd friends. As soon as Jackie was released from the hospital, masked and wearing a stocking cap over her hairless chemo head, she was in church. When she walked up to receive communion, Pastor Varinia’s face lit up and she embraced Jackie at the foot of the cross.
While Jackie remains vulnerable to respiratory infections, she and Terry are in worship every Sunday. Jackie firmly believes that without the prayers and love expressed to her through the ministry of Good Shepherd the outcome of her leukemia journey would have been very different.
Good Shepherd is blessed to have pastors and dedicated members of our Care and Visitation Team to help the community navigate the various challenges in our lives. Through your continued support of these ministries, we are able to help families such as Jackie’s through their difficult times.
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