Looking back, I wish I could say Faith Bootcamp’s roots were born out of the pure joy and love of teaching the Word. I wish the birth of this ministry came from simple formulas on how to minister learned from the front row seat of some well-established Bible College. I wish the beginnings of Faith Bootcamp came from anything except from where it actually came from.
Faith Bootcamp was actually born out of one of the darkest moments of my life.
the birth of faith bootcamp
In the fall of 2000, I was a young mother to three very small children. Life was busy and I was enjoying myself as the Associate Pastor leading Children’s Church every Sunday. Everything was perfect except for the flu-like symptoms my daughter, Hosanna, was experiencing. I took her to the doctor who gave me standard flu treatment protocols to follow. I followed them carefully, but she still seemed like she never felt good.
On Christmas Eve, she began vomiting violently. I did everything I could think of throughout the night, but she didn’t get any better. I finally broke down and took her to the Emergency Room on Christmas Day. We were admitted to the hospital and over the next few days of running test after test, the results came back. The diagnosis was worse than I could have ever imagined. My beautiful red-haired, green-eyed baby girl was diagnosed with Stage 3 Neuroblastoma.
Over the next three months, she should have improved as chemotherapy was administered. The treatments they were giving her were the latest treatments available and the Children’s hospital where she was receiving treatment had wonderful doctors. Nothing was working, however, and on March 15, 2001 Hosana “coded”. Doctors worked feverishly to save her. For more than 40 minutes, they did everything they could but were only able to restore very faint signs of life. They finally called me back to the room where they were working on her in the ICU and asked me to call the funeral home and make “the necessary arrangements”.
I looked straight past them at her vital signs as they were talking and trying to explain her condition. Her heart was barely beating and her blood pressure reading displayed “20/18” on the monitors. I know I must have sounded annoyed as I asked “Well when is the blood pressure machine going to take her blood pressure”? The Doctor glanced at the monitor and answered flatly “That is her blood pressure”. Fear instantly jumped up on me. I sat there staring at him as I felt the blood draining from my face. Cold, hard reality started setting in of what he was saying. The room turned icy and I felt the world starting to crumble around me. I could feel my body starting to shake as I said the only thing that came to mind at the moment “Sir, my daughter will live and not die and declare the works of the Lord”. That passage from Psalms 118:17 was the only thing I could get to come out of my mouth. We argued for several minutes before the doctor gave up and started walking away after stating one last time “I am so sorry. Her heart will stop any moment now. We have done all we can do.”
Hosanna's Diagnosis
the beginning
Hosanna did live through the day but that particular battle left her with severe brain damage. She was dead for such a long time before they were able to get her back. The doctors had worked tirelessly in the ICU with all the best equipment and knowledge available to revive her but it was simply not enough. I knew that if Hosanna was going to live I was going to have to “walk by faith and not by sight” according to 2 Corinthians 5:7. God was our only hope.
Over the next few months, Hosanna battled tirelessly defying every diagnosis and episode time after time as I walked out the faith I knew.
Against all odds, she finally improved and we were finally able to go home on June 9, 2001.
Hosanna could no longer walk, talk, swallow or do anything for herself. She had a tracheostomy and was tube fed along with an overwhelming amount of medications. Despite how things looked, I was elated to have her at home where I could continue to pray and believe God for her recovery.
Over the next couple of weeks everything started to settle into a routine. This new life was stressful, but I was so relieved to be out of the hospital with Hosanna after months of straight hospitalization, I was willing to make sacrifices to make it work. I felt like I could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.
That light at the end of the tunnel, however, turned out to be a freight train.
bringing hosanna home
the light at the end of the tunnel
Ever since Hosanna had been diagnosed with cancer in December of 2000, my three year-old son, Elijah, had acted like he did not feel good. I took him to the doctor multiple times from December 2000 to June 2001. Each time, doctors blew off my concerns as being an over-reactive mom because Hosanna was so sick. I dug in, trying to get them to hear me to no avail. Finally, on June 29th of 2001, just 20 days after getting discharged from the hospital with Hosanna, the right doctor ran the right tests and handed down the worst possible diagnosis on Elijah imaginable. Elijah also had Neuroblastoma too. He was a Stage 4 and he had no hope of surviving it.
Doctors gave him two months to live if he was lucky but stated he would likely be gone in two weeks. Scans had been performed and cancer was everywhere you looked in his tiny body. Literally, everywhere. There were “hot spots’ showing on his scans where Neuroblastoma was present, there were three major tumors and his bone marrow was packed with cancer cells. I broke down, sobbing. Where was God? Why was this happening again and what was I supposed to do now? I felt cornered and feelings of desperation would send my emotions spiralling if I thought about everything too much. When I finally stopped crying, I stood up and made a decision to begin walking out the faith principles I knew and believed God would somehow save my son’s life.
Months of treatments eventually stretched into years as my children endured chemotherapy, tumor resections, radiation, bone marrow transplants, countless procedures, hospitalizations and maintenance drugs. It was an endless nightmare. I endured by doing the only thing I knew to do. I spent the better part of my days meditating on scriptures and trying to stay focused as I realized there were no real answers to what I was encountering in this natural world. I was in a spiritual battle for my kids’ lives
Elijah's Diagnosis
The freight train
During this time, I crossed paths countless times with well meaning, Christian folks. “Just have faith in God” they would say as their form of trying to encourage me. To get them off of me, I would give them a frozen smile and nod feigning understanding and agreement as I tried to hurry away from conversations with them. Inside, I was seething from an anger I couldn’t even articulate. The pressure had been relentless for months on end and the doctors stating that my children were the only set of siblings in the world with Neuroblastoma was just too much. I was exhausted from running between hospital rooms and the pain of watching my children’s bodies wracked with pain and sickness while I stood by feeling helpless was excruciating. I was doing all I knew to do to walk by faith so what did they even mean?
It all came to a head one day when one person too many told me to “just have faith in God” while trying to talk to me after hearing my story. I tried to walk away from the lady but ended up turning on her as my emotions boiled over. “What do you mean”? I asked her. The nice little lady talking to me that had been super confident in her trite little response two seconds ago suddenly froze. “Huh”? she said. I asked her again, “What does ‘have faith in God’ even mean?” I tried hard to hide my irritation and be polite but that rage that had been building for months just wouldn’t stay down.. She literally began stuttering. She thought really hard for a moment and slowly stated “oh, well…you just need to pray to God and stuff and ask him to heal your kids”. I openly stared at her. “I did that and I am still here in this hospital with them so now what”? She stared back. “Oh” she said as she slowly walked away. She didn’t know how to answer me beyond that casual, initial answer she had tried to give. She had no real idea how to have faith in God.
Over the next few months, every time someone told me to have faith in God, I asked the same question. I was met with the same inability to articulate the question of how to have faith. No one actually seemed to know anything. Although I had seen many miracles happen in my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Alaska, I realized I had to use my own faith. My parents’ believed God for everything growing up. My parents faith saw mountains moved, people healed, provision miraculously supplied, lives transformed and people delivered from addiction and sickness. I, however, had lived off of their faith and never learned how to trust God for myself.
the unhelpful advice
well meaning messages
From those dark moments, a drive was placed in me to teach people how to have faith in God. I never wanted anyone to experience what I had been through.
I studied relentlessly to be able to break the subject of faith down to its most simple form so anyone could learn to walk in faith. I wanted brand new Christians to be able to live by faith as well as any established believer after hearing basic principles taught.
I also wanted believers who had been saved for a long period of time to be able to articulate how to walk in faith if they were ever asked. I never wanted anyone to experience what I had experienced in those moments. Throughout my experience with my kids, I had put the Word of God to the test and found it to be “fire proof”. God is real. His Word has the power to save, heal, deliver and set free if you put the Word to work with your faith.
Today, Faith Bootcamp has been taught in women’s conferences and presented in churches and seminars all over the country. Articulating what faith is and how to apply it to see miraculous results in a believers’ everyday life is the sole purpose of Faith Bootcamp.
Our goal is to transform baby Christians into battle-ready believers equipped to walk, talk, and live by faith in every area of their life.
Your journey to walking by faith begins here at Faith Bootcamp!
the birth of faith bootcamp
learning to trust god
I believe honesty and transparency as a faith leader is key. It is one thing to preach to others about how to live because that is what the word says we need to do. It is another to be able to say “I have lived this faith life and found that it works”. I am honest about the good times and the bad. I am honest about how I approach hard topics.
I try to break the pieces down to “having faith in God” to its simplest form. I don’t make it hard. I keep things as simple as possible and give real life examples of how it has worked for me in the past, what I did and didn’t do while believing God for a miracle and what my results were.
I don't just talk the talk - i have walked the walk
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