Help the Mike Stephenson Family on Everleigh's Journey

“Please help the Mike Stephenson Family on Everleigh's Hope and Journey”

Hello, this is Karensa Stephenson, wife of Rev. Mike Stephenson and mother of 7 adopted children. Many of you know my husband as Bro. Mike, Pastor, or Pastor Mike, as we have been in ministry together over 20 years. I am writing to tell you more about our daughter, Everleigh Hope. Some of you may be familiar with her story from following her Facebook page called, “Everleigh's Hope and Journey”. May I have a few moments of your time to share a bit more about her and our current situation.

Everleigh was born at 34 weeks to a drug addicted mother and was thus taken into DHS custody. She spent 6 weeks in the NICU at OU Children's in Oklahoma City. That is where we first met and fell deeply in love with her. She was born with some very complex medical needs. I trained in caring for her there and brought her home. We rejoiced greatly when we adopted her in December of 2023. Since that time we have been navigating all her medical and therapeutic needs. She has 15 different specialists and therapists overseeing her care. Her main diagnosis is Marfan Syndrome, which encompasses cleft lip and palette, heart defects, lung and airway complications, scoliosis, Pectus Carinatum, eye issues and Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea. She also suffers the ill effects of having a very large fatty tumor on top of her Corpus Collosum. That is the area of the brain that sends signals from the left hemisphere to the right. It is the main highway for EVERYTHING! This has caused neurological damage in her legs and in multiple other functions of her body. Having said all of this, you can see why she has 15 specialists and therapists working with her. We normally have at least one overnight specialist trip per month and therapy twice weekly. The specialists are either at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital or OU Children's in Oklahoma City. Each of these hospitals are over 300 miles round trip. Her therapists are located a little over and hour away. Occasionally a month, such as is the case right now, we can have multiple specialist appointments. This month of October we have 10, with one being a surgery stay and another one or two overnight stays. She doesn't travel well and 6 hrs car time, plus several hours at the doctor makes far too long of a day on both of us! All these appointments mean extra gas, food, and car maintenance expenses added to our limited budget. This leads me to tell you more of why I have humbled myself to reach out to you, our family, friends, and former congregations.

As some of you may know, my husband is also disabled. Mike has a very rare disease called Stiff Person Syndrome. It was recently brought to light by Celine Dion being diagnosed with it. He is an ordained minister with over 20 years of ministry under his belt. Back in September of 2024, he stepped down from his current pastorate due to his declining health and the overwhelming load of stress. Stress is the worst possible thing for an individual with SPS as it worsens the condition 10 fold! He has been home recuperating. With this being said, it has caused a severe strain on our finances. With the poor economy and all this extra expense month after month, we have found ourselves in need. This is an humbling experience for a minister because we are normally the ones helping others in need. We have fostered over 20 infants and children and adopted 7 special needs children since 1998. Currently we are fostering a 3 and 5 year old sibling set, that have their own issues and appointments, along with Everleigh's. As I said earlier, Everleigh is our 7th adopted child. We are not used to being the ones on the receiving end of things, but the bible says, “We have not because we ask not.”

May God Richly Bless You,

and thank you for taking this journey with us,

Karensa Stephenson