Rally Around the Rowleys!

Marcy Rowley is an incredible wife, mother, friend and the most humble and faithful Christ follower I know. Her and her husband, Michael, have been in our lives for the last seven years. In that time, I've watched Marcy and Michael lose the business they moved from Illinois to Ohio to start. Their dream of opening Seekers, a franchised faith based coffee shop, crumbled with the economy and lack of traffic in the newly developed Creekside area of Gahanna. Never once did Marcy exhibit bitterness or anger. She spoke of how God called them to do this franchise and through it they know of at least one life that came to Christ. In Marcy's eyes, their earthly hardships have always paled in comparison to the greater goal of sharing the gospel. She persevered with faithful obedience to what she knew to be God's bigger plan for her family. I've also witnessed Marcy and Michael's unshakeable faith through the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and many other health conditions in all three of their children. At varying degrees, each child requires speech, occupational and physical therapy, one-on-one behavior aides, and countless doctor appointments. Marcy has literally transformed her home into treatment rooms for her children. Again, while many would be understandably angry with God through all of the exhausting, emotionally and physically draining days of actively parenting medically fragile children on the spectrum, Marcy and Michael feel honored that God has chosen them to raise such beautiful, talented and unique children. Five years ago, Marcy was diagnosed with Addison's disease, an autoimmune disease that attacks the adrenal glands and production of cortisol in the body. Most likely due to the stress of mounting debt from the bankruptcy, medical bills and unstable employment, the Addisons reeked havoc on Marcy's system causing an adrenal crisis. Through the power of the Holy Spirit that clearly lives inside Marcy, she continued to persevere as a faithful wife, advocate for her children and self-employed unit manager of a successful direct sale company. Although her Addisons was now under the care of physicians, this last year Marcy started to experience crippling symptoms of joint pain and swelling, extreme fatigue, rashes, weight loss, hair loss, enlarged lymph nodes and much more; which led to countless biopsies and blood draws, leaving doctors baffled as to what was happening in this otherwise healthy 36 year old's body .. A question that seemed to take far too long to answer. They found a severe Vitamin D deficiency, neuropathy, and Reynaud's Syndrome and then finally, last week, a Rheumatologist at The Ohio State University diagnosed my sweet friend with Systemic Lupus, yet another autoimmune disease, this one much more serious and progressive than her already diagnosed Addison's Disease. Marcy and Michael met with doctors Friday to discuss how to best treat the active stage the disease is in, causing a flare-up she is currently experiencing, while attempting to slow down damage to internal organs such as her kidneys, liver, heart, skin and nervous system. This brings me to why I have set up this fund for the Rowley family.... Not taking into consideration the thousands of dollars in medical bills for Marcy and their 3 children, Michael and Marcy are struggling to pay off the $14,000 left on their business bankruptcy, a debt responsibility that is currently keeping them from being able to afford copays on prescription medication therapies, copays for the many specialists involved and coinsurance on all the monthly, quarterly and annual tests that have to be done due to the way Lupus attacks the body. NO ONE SHOULD EVER HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN DEBT AND LIFE SAVING MEDICATION...NO ONE! EVER! Michael and Marcy both work extremely hard to make ends meet, but it's not enough. This is heartbreaking and unnecessary to have to make such decisions, choices and deal with so much stress. Marcy and Michael are selfless servants committed to growing the kingdom by reaching lost people for Jesus. Through all of this, Marcy has never missed a day of sending out a daily morning devotional to hundreds of women. Both her and Michael continue to remain active in their local church and in many ministries and support / advocacy groups for children with autism, sensory processing disorder and other special needs. Now it's time for us to help them! Marcy has explained to me that the deadline for their 5 year bankruptcy loan repayment plan is this December. There is no way this couple is going to achieve that on their own and I cannot stomach the thought of Marcy putting off her life saving treatment and tests in order to pay off debt! I'm confident I'm not alone in saying that Marcy and Michael's story of faithfulness, perseverance and obedience to our Savior has touched my life. If you feel the same, please pray for how God wants to use you to serve this amazing family! Just think- If 140 families donate $100, we have lifted this burden out from under them, decreasing Marcy's stress and allowing for health, healing and treatment to begin.

"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2