Description: Prayer request Status: True Circulating since: April 2000 Analysis: See below
archive of legends & netlore Michael Novenche Prayer Request
Email text contributed by Nick Gage, 05/02/00:
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.
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