In the early morning hours of December 3rd, our amazing dad Jay suffered a stroke at home while sleeping. Fortunately, our mom Chris was able to respond very quickly, and he was taken to the hospital in Holland Michigan and eventually transferred to University of Michigan Health West Hospital in Grand Rapids for an emergent thrombectomy. The procedure went well, however a lot of damage to the brain had already occurred before the clots could be removed. He was medically stabilized over several days at the ICU and medical floor and was just transferred to acute inpatient rehab. He is at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in downtown Grand Rapids. This is wonderful because it is in the top 10 rehab hospitals in the United States! The stroke significantly impacted the Broca's area of his brain which is where language is formed and processed. It also impacted his motor movement on his right side and is unable to use that side at this time. Currently, Jay is unable to speak but does recognize familiar faces, evidenced by small smirks and direct eye contact. He is able to follow some simple commands, although his comprehension of speech was greatly impacted as well. As his ICU doctor said, it's like you are in a different country and you don't understand the language completely and don't know how to speak it either- but you do recognize emotions on people's faces. We are told comprehension will be one of the first things to improve and we pray that is true. To know Jay is to love Jay! Watching him be unable to communicate his needs fully is very hard for us, but we are trusting in the LORD for a miraculous recovery and future testimony. His kind words of encouragement and love have supported and touched countless lives. He has prayer journals full of prayers for so many people by name, or even people he met briefly at the grocery store or dry cleaners. If you know Jay, you are probably written somewhere in one of his prayer journals! Our Mom (Chris) has always been dad's sweetheart, love of his life, and favorite person. Mom has stayed by his side sleeping in the hospital so he can always see her beautiful familiar face when he wakes up. She plans to do the same at rehab, going home infrequently, as she wants to be near dad as often as possible and learn how to best support him in his motor, cognitive and speech rehab. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO HELP During times like this, people often ask - what can we do? We have a very simple and powerful request for anyone who wants to help Mom and Dad. Dad's love language is encouragement. Dad's peace comes from the LORD. If you are able to, please pick a bible verse or worship song that you will dedicate to Jay and/or Chris. Then please comment below to share that verse or song that you will pray or sing those words over him through his recovery. When he is healed, we will make him a book out of all your comments and dedicated prayers/verses and also make a Spotify playlists of all the songs that were prayed over him. This will create a beautiful and memorable connection for our parents to each of you- associated to a verse or a song that you kindly prayed over him. NOTHING will mean more to our dad than this. If you'd rather not pick a worship song or verse, comment a quote, poem or lyric that will make you think of him, or even just an encouraging word message. ANY form of affirmation is pure love to Dad. If you feel led to give in a different or another way, Mom will be staying at the rehab, and you can give through Door Dash directly through this page. That way she doesn't have to worry about meals for herself 3x/day for several weeks. Also, if she needs something from the pharmacy or store, she doesn't need to leave Dad if it's a bad time. Mom and Dad don't need this financial help, but if you want to give, it will help certainly help with convenience! We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for caring for our family in this trying time. We are so thankful that our family has built our lives on the firm foundation of Christ- so we can lean into hope. Christ will sustain us - as the song says, "Christ is my firm foundation. He's never let me down. He's faithful in every season, so why would he fail now? HE WON'T!" Thank you and love you all. Rae, Jaci & Bekah