I met Hannah (Johnson) Rinehart in the summer of 2000. We were team members on an IMB summer mission trip to Czestochowa, Poland. We served there together for 2 and a half months...we lived together along with 4 other girls in a house on Traugutta St...many, many memories were made that summer!
You may have seen Hannah in the news over the past week or so. At the beginning of July, she was admitted to the ICU at Northside Hospital with a bacterial infection that made her septic. You can read more about the initial hospitalization here.
Last week Hannah's family, under the recommendation of her surgeons, had to make the difficult decision to remove Hannah's hands and feet. The initial shock to her circulatory system had damaged the tissues irrevocably, and her healing process was not moving along as it should.
Hannah is beginning to wake up and her husband, Mark, has explained the events of the past month to her. Please be in prayer for her, and for her family. Pray for God's perfect peace and strength to cover her, and for her healing to be complete.
I wanted to write about this to share
my memories of Hannah, and the reasons why I know she's going to
make it through this. Hannah is a cancer survivor, having beaten
Hodgkin's lymphoma following 2
bone marrow transplants. When I met her, she was in remission after her
1st bout with cancer...and her life, well...it was a living testimony. I looked back through my
journal from that summer and one of the things I wrote about Hannah was
how her knowledge of the Word and diligence in prayer was such an
inspiration to me.
This is one of my favorite photos of Hannah from that summer. We met this group of older ladies in a park, and even though the language barrier was...well, an issue...Hannah still loved on those ladies and ministered to them, through her smile and kind words (that we translated with the help of a Polish/English dictionary!)
Hannah is on the far right.
A website has been set up to share Hannah's progress and assist her, her husband Mark, and the family as they begin this new journey together.
Hannah's husband shared this verse in an update on Facebook yesterday, and I thought it couldn't be more perfect...
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21
2 comments:
I love that picture of Hannah, too!
Wow, it is special for me to see Hannah here on your blog. It's like peeking into a portion of her life that I heard about but have not seen. She is an amazing woman here in the US and as she traveled abroad. The love of Christ has always been evident by the way she lived and by the greatfulness in her smile.
Thank you for your prayers. They are being used to strengthen her and bring glory to God.
Love,
Elizabeth
(Hannah's Sister In Law)
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