Please Pray!!!!

To those who aren't local, we've been doing alot of praying for Brooke Mulford. She is the 4 year old daughter of Rob & Amy Mulford, owners of Market Street Inn - a Restaurant in Salisbury that both Shawn & I worked at during and after college. Less than a month ago she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma - a very rare neurological cancer that is more common in infants and children. I do not want to begin to imagine what it must be like to have to go through this as a parent. - Just a plug - if anyone is interested in learning more about Brooke and putting her on your prayer list, the family is asking for as much prayer they can get. Please read more about her: http://www.brookemulford.com/.

Today there was a Walkathon for Brooke held at Market Street Inn. Shawn wasn't feeling well so I took both the kids out to support the cause. Because church ran a little late, we were late to the walk and missed the opening events. The Mayor of Salisbury declared today "Beat it with Brooke Day" in the town of Salisbury. How amazing!! We caught up with the pack of 300+ walkers and completed the mile walk through Downtown Salisbury. It's amazing to see the wonderful things that have been done to help this family out and to create awareness of this horible disease!! You can view all of these things on Brooke's website as well.

When Brooke first got sick, I sat down with Hailey and told her the story:

"Hailey, do you remember at your friend Gabe's birthday party there was a litte girl named Brooke? You probably don't remember her, but her Daddy is friends with Mommy and Daddy. Well, Brooke is sick and had to go to the hospital"

"I'm sick too, Mommy. Hear me cough? 'COUGH'"

"Yes Hailey, but Brooke is very sick. Her legs hurt her very badly and she can't walk. She has what doctors call cancer and it is very serious. Brooke needs our help to pray to Jesus and ask for Him to heal her."

I watched her let it sink in.....

That night up in her room as we were saying our prayers, she said, "Mommy, now we need to ask Jesus to heal Brooke's legs. Because she's sick and Jesus can make her all better."

"That's right!!"

Then a few nights later, as we were saying the blessing over dinner, we said AMEN and she said, "Mommy, you forgot to pray for Brooke! We need to pray for Brooke's legs cuz she can't walk and she's sick!" And so we added a little P.S. prayer for Brooke.

We have continued to pray for Brooke over the past few weeks.

Today as we were at the Walk, Hailey pointed out all the pictures of Brooke and acknowledged that we had been praying for that girl in that picture! We were standing around eating cotton candy (which we waited 20 minutes in line for) and I noticed Rob behind us. I leaned over and asked Hailey if she wanted to meet Brooke's Daddy. She said yes and was very excited!

I introduced Hailey to Rob and said, "Hey Rob! This is Hailey. She wanted to meet you and let you know that she's been praying for Brooke and your family has been in our prayers." Rob thanked us for coming to show our support and for our prayers, then looked at Hailey's blue cotton candy mouth and said, "Are you enjoying your cotton candy? Brooke likes cotton candy too!" Once we got home, Hailey was very excited to share with her daddy that, "We went to Brooke's Walk today and I met Brooke's daddy, and Brooke likes cotton candy too!"

I guess my point in this story is to share my amazement in my daughter, and the compassion that she has towards other - as we all know toddlers are very self centered by nature. It amazes me that she thinks about others, their feelings, and truely understands things that you explain to her! And also, I'm amazed that she realizes that Jesus can heal this little girl!!!

Please help us pray for this little girl! She just began to lose her hair this week and goes through her second round of chemo next week.