PLEASE PRAY A LOT TODAY

Message from John Leinen
RE: His brother
Raven Ministries InternationalNov 23, 2006

Sorry I have not had time to personally keep you informed.

There is so much info its hard to get it intact by the time it makes it down the chain lol.

So I wanted to give you the 411 from the source of the info.

My brother Stephen is 16, and on the day before the RAVEN banquette he was admitted to BSA hospital for a 7 hour nose bleed.
The Monday after our awesome time together with the Lord and his doctors diagnosed him with the rarest form of leukemia.
A few days after that diagnosis they told us about his enlarged heart. They said "we will treat the cancer then worry about his heart". Well weeks and weeks went by and finally the let him come home for a week.

Then on his third day home he had another nose bleed and went back to the hospital. They treated it and sent him home.
The whole time he had been home from the first day the company for his meds had been saying that without $1600 per month they would stop his meds.

The insurance only covers what is done at the hospital. well he had his check up on the Monday following his week home and they admitted him for two blood transfusions and he was supposed to go home right after.
That Tuesday they found he had a infection in his blood and kept him. Wed they tell Pastor Mark and my family that Stephens leukemia in starting to go into remission. Thursday 4:00 am he starts having trouble.

Thursday 10:00am they call me and tell me he is going back to ICU. By 11:00am his heart quits the first time I get to hear them screaming for crash carts and 20 doctors surrounding him. Turns out he has a second heart problem that can kill him with athletic type activity (Indiana basketball player died on the court playing ball had the same condition) they say it is hereditary and had to come from one of my parents and there is a 1 in 4 chance both me and my sister have it too.

Later on he is stable and me and his nurse pick him up to help him use the bathroom and after we get him situated on the bedside toilette and step out the machines go crazy his heart had dropped again. I had to dead lift him (290pounds) and hold him up while the nurse cleaned him off. You know PT I thought someday I would have to maybe do that for my parents but not my little brother.

Since then and before then many many things happened that were just as bad but for times sake..........He stayed pretty stable through the weekend little episodes hear and there but they got him stable everytime.

They were waiting for his infection to go away before they could send him to Houston.

It was gone as of this Tuesday but then Wednesday I get that call I hate getting and they say get your mom from work your brother cant breathe because of fluid trapped between his lungs and his ribcage, and they needed my mom to sign the papers before they could put a tube through his ribcage to let out the fluid.
They did it and as soon as they stuck it in they got 27 ounces of fluid and mo re came out all night.

Around 10:30pm they woke him up to give him pills and he had been asleep every since the operation.
As soon as he woke up he felt pain so bad that his body convulsed and he stopped breathing.

They got O2 and got him breathing and he was begging for pain meds. I held his and and rubbed his head and some of what little of the hair on his head fell out into my fingers.

He was in so much pain then that he could not talk i told him i was there and if he could hear me squeeze my hand and he did. I prayed for his pain to go away as i laid hands on him then told him i was going to call some prayer warriors he shook his head yes.

He is stable for now but actually hurting so bad that he groans in his sleep.

On that one Thursday when his heart tried to quit on him he was awak e and aware of it all especially the pain they let me talk to him wile they were operating cuz i said "I'm sorry I know y'all are doing your job but i need to talk with him about are primary physician. the doctor, a Hindu man said "who is this doctor?" I said Jesus and his words were "proceed".

I talked with my brother and he said "don't bother i already asked Jesus to forgive me".
He is in great depression and doesn't care about much most of the depression is also from the meds they give him. But if you can do nothing else in life but ask Jesus to forgive u and u will go to heaven then my brother is saved.

But if there is more to it than that like so many of us believe then I don't know if he is saved i really don't.

He knows that Jesus did not make him sick, and we all keep telling him Jesus is the healer, and he says "If Jesus is letting me go through this and not healing me for a reason, I'm fine with that but why does He have to let it hurt so much?"

Love, Big John
RAVEN MINISTRIES AMARILLO