Divine support
By Ruth Schenk | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
In Sudan, they call Debbie Stone “the spider killer.” She’s the one grown men three times her size called to take care of the African-sized “beasts.” She is the Southeast
mission team member who totes a baby on each hip and the short one others often overlook when she is in a group of teenagers. She stands less than 5 feet, but
don’t be mistaken. “Little Debbie” is a giant.
At Southeast, her name is on a list of the volunteers who stay with ministries long after initial outreach ends.
When potent chemotherapy to kill her stage 4 ovarian cancer is over this fall, she plans to take another mission trip to Africa, finish her degree to teach Math to at-risk
kids in Louisville and go back to serving in the community.
For this 50-year-old in perpetual motion, cancer came as a shock.
She looked at a hysterectomy and what doctors thought was a hernia repair last March as a temporary inconvenience, a quick fix so she could get back to traveling and
holding babies, jogging and finishing her college degree. The doctor assured her that she had less than a 1 percent chance that it was cancer.
But “routine” surgery last March 21 showed that her case was in that 1 percent.
Stone took the bad news in stride.
“When they told me about the cancer, I knew two things,” Stone said. “I had to be strong for my kids, and second, that I am in the Lord’s hands. Whether He chooses to
heal me here or in eternity, I win.”
Southeast member and close friend Candy Konkler was with Stone in those first few weeks after surgery. They began using a saying they had learned through the
death of Konkler’s mother a few years ago: “It is what it is. Now what are you going to do about it?”
“From day one, Debbie’s attitude has been to praise the Lord that He chose her to walk this road for His purpose,” Konkler said.
Stone seriously considered quitting the six-month regimen after her first chemotherapy treatment.
She is on a three-week cycle that puts her in the hospital for 32 hours on a bed that is flipped up, down and around to move the chemo into her bones. Afterward, she
cannot walk, has no strength and has to deal with pain and nausea. For weeks afterward, she is too sick to eat or drink. Stone has learned to savor the three or four
good days she feels decent before the next onslaught.
Her three grown children convinced her to persevere.
Stone told friends and family that if she was going to continue treatment, she needed prayer.
“It’s great to have people praying for you,” she said. “But I need people praying with me—like when Moses was praying for the Israelites doing battle. I need them to
help hold my arms up to get through this.”
Stone prayed for one more thing.
“I asked the Lord that if He wanted me to go through this and bring people closer to Him, I needed my smile,” she said. “He’s been faithful to do that. I prayed if God
chose to keep me here that He would help me do my best to live a life pleasing to Him.”
When Stone goes to the doctor or the lab for tests, the hospital or pharmacy, people often say, “I love it when you come. You encourage us so much.”
Jason Dilday has been on several mission trips with Stone.
“Debbie was an inspiration before cancer,” he said. “It’s easy to see Christ in her words and actions. In the midst of this, Debbie has fallen back on prayer, and she’s
using this as an opportunity to point others to Christ.”
Stone packs her three or four good days each month. She has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and gets together with friends and family, who have organized a
bowling fundraiser on July 23 at King Pin bowling lanes to help Stone with medical bills.
As a lifelong giver, it’s been hard for Stone to learn to accept help, but she already has a payback plan in mind.
“My prayer is like Hezekiah’s prayer in the Old Testament,” Stone said. “That God will give me 15 years to serve Him and others.”