Michael Novenche Prayer Request Email text contributed by Nick Gage, 05/02/00: |
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EMERGENCY PRAYER REQUEST
Prayers needed for Michael Novenche, and his parents. I don't have a large forwarding list but I'm hoping that some of you do. Everyone with large mailing list, please forward what I am writing to you now to ask for your help. I do not really know how to start a prayer chain, but we need a miracle. Michael Novenche is a 2-year-old beautiful little boy in Clifton Park, Ne w York, and the grandson of a very dear friend of mine. A few months ago, he started throwing up and telling Mommy "boo boo in my head." He was brought to the doctors and tests were ran on him, later that week he started losing feeling in the left side of his poor little body. They found a large tumor in his brain. He was brought to a hospital in Boston where doctors told his family the tumor was too big and it was too risky to operate on it. His aunts and uncle would not give up, they called Beth Israel, then e-mailed Dr. Epstein for him to look at Michael's films. Michael's uncle then drove the films to New York City himself for Dr. Epstein to look at. Dr. Epstein operated but couldn't remove the entire tumor and now he has to go through chemo to keep the tumor from growing and hitting the brain stem. We need all the prayers we can get for the chemo to kill the tumor entirely. As I write this, he started chemotherapy on March 28, 2000 and we are hoping desperately that it works. We need all the prayers we can get. Please stop and say one prayer for this beautiful baby boy Michael when you read this letter. This little baby boy needs all the prayers he can get for the chemo to work, so he can start living the life of a little boy. He has been put through more tests and has been poked with more needles than most of us could ever even imagine. He is tired of all this and does not understand, please pray for this beautiful little boy. He just wants to play and be with his family, not to be rushed from one doctor to another and to be away from his loving family. I am asking for your prayers on his behalf. Please pray for his healing and for strength and comfort for his family. He is only 2 years old. Think of a 2-year-old in your life and imagine that life being cut short. You can on ly imagine a fraction of the pain and fear his parents are facing. They need a miracle of God's healing so that they can watch their precious baby boy grow up. I am asking you to send this letter, or copies of it, to everybody you can think of that will pray for Michael. Please also take his name to your church and church groups and ask others to pray for his healing. Many thanks and may God bless each one of you who care enough to pray for a little boy's life. I am asking that each and every one of you please forward this on to everyone that you know. Just think if this was your little child going through this right now. We all know that God can heal this little angel, it's His will. Please take time to do this right now. Thank you from family and friends of Michael Novenche, but most of all Michael. |
Comments by Peter Kohler: That ought to be enough to put starch into anybody's collar, you may be thinking. Sure, and yet ... this particular heartfelt prayer request is based on facts and reality. A friend of the actual Novenche family in Clifton Park, NY, did compose this missive and launch it out onto the internet. And did so for the sole purpose of trying to help a family – and most especially a small child – in need.
We've been in email contact with one of the grandparents of Michael Novenche. From him we've learned that Michael underwent another brain scan ordeal on Wednesday, September 27, 2000, and that the results showed a small but definite reduction in the size of the tumor remaining within his young body. And so, most wonderfully, the medicine is working – both the chemotherapy and the prayers.
Last spring (2000) a benefit was held locally at McGeary's Pub to raise money for the parents of Michael Novenche, whose insurance falls short of covering all the bills being racked up by the medical treatments that their boy needs.
Let's take note of just a couple of elements that distinguish this request from so many others that are similar to it. It does not tell us simply to forward it to "everybody we know." It says, "I am asking you to send this letter, or copies of it, to everybody you can think of that will pray for Michael." This is significant. This does not play into the numerous and popular email forwarding hoax patterns current that rely upon a fictitious email-tracking computer program. Also, it is non-threatening to readers who don't comply and offers no specific rewards to those who do.
In short, this is a passive email scatter-shoot message. We would only wish that more dates and specific, verifiable pieces of information had been included in it, to more readily differentiate it from so many scams and hoaxes that it resembles.
Michael Novenche's grandfather, John, expresses his and the family's profound appreciation to all who have moved inward for a moment to offer a prayer for this beleaguered little boy.
