Tuesday, April 7, 2009

believeprayerworks.blogspot.com

The new site and new chat room have been a great blessing and a big success. Many friends have come back to visit and keep tabs on some of the children currently being treated at St Jude. Some of the parents of the children have been coming by to visit in the room, share prayer request with us and pray with us. It has been wonderful to have purpose and direction again.

For all of the marathon team members there are some updates on the organization of the team. Those of us that have worked on it to organize it are getting geared up to get it kicked off again. At this time, the only info I have is that registration will begin in late spring. As some of you found out last year...there is a limit and it does fill up. It is predicted due to the way it filled up last year, that people will not wait this year to register, but will register as soon as possible to ensure they get in. So I suggest that if you want to participate that you do not hesitate to get registered as soon as it opens.

There will be a few changes this year... Our team was formed and we were all brought together because of Ethan. We hope that we have honored him and his memory by being Team Ethan. He will always be a part of this team but we would like to include other patients too. Not everyone has the opportunity to organize their own personal team. We want to share and include others in this opportunity to give back to St Jude. We will be using the name TEAM BELIEVE now. Our goal is to honor a different patient each year. We will have a design on our shirt where we will add a new name each year. Names from the past will remain as part of the design. So therefore, Ethan will always be a part of us.

This year we will be running for Mary Kate Rushing. When I first ask her if we could have our team run in her name, she was so excited. I wish you could have seen her face and her eyes when she was asked. I ask her if she would come up with a design that she wanted on her shirt, this too excited her very much. As most of you know, Mary Kate lost her battle to leukemia one week ago. She was working on her design for the shirt, her mom will proudly finish it for her, she knows what Mary Kate wanted. We will proudly walk in loving memory of Mary Kate. Regina, her mom, and her sister Alyson will be joining us along with other family members too. If you are not familiar with Mary Kate you can read her caringbridge site at caringbridge.org/visit/marykaterushing

The plans for now are to keep with our tradition of events from the past two years. I will set up hotel accommodations for everyone needing a room, we will have our dinner on Friday evening the night before the big day, then participate in the events of the morning downtown. Again on Saturday evening after the marathon, everyone is invited out to my house to hang out, comfort our aching feet, and eat some good ole Memphis BBQ! This has proved to be one of the highlights of the weekend. We can just sit around and really get to know each other and visit. I am not sure at this point if there will be another tour of the hospital or not.

THIS WILL BE THE LAST POST ON THIS BLOG. ALL FUTURE POST WITH INFO REGARDING THE MARATHON WILL BE ON THE NEW BLOG PAGE. www.believeprayerworks.blogspot.com

I hope to see you all on the new blog, this year will be a great experience once again.

Thank you for all of your love and support for this wonderful hospital.

Mardecia