Special Announcement: Kara Witt
The following is a letter from Pastor Orrin Witt from Neighborhood Church Lakeland.
Pastor Orrin, Chelsea (7), Carlee (12), Riley (9), Kara and Josie (3) +baby Witt is due May 20, 2023.
To our friends and family, ministry partners, congregations, and faithful supporters:
We received some life-changing news yesterday: Kara had a biopsy done a few weeks ago and results came back positive for breast cancer. We haven't been able to meet with the oncologist yet, so that is literally all we know right now. We greatly appreciate your prayers and during this difficult time, and I'm sure as this new season progresses we will need help in ways we don't even know yet.
We'll keep you posted with updates as we learn more. Our baby is healthy and strong and is not in danger. It’s possible they will recommend delivering the baby a little sooner than expected, but at this time nothing has been decided. Please know that all your texts and calls are a welcome encouragement to us even if we don’t respond. Our hearts are heavy and our heads are a bit cloudy right now, and we're so thankful to have friends and family like you around us.
We feel (and truly are) so helpless and powerless, but we are NOT HOPELESS! God is good to us. He is present with us, He is sovereign over it all, and He loves us! It is our appointed time to glorify God in our weakness. He owes us nothing, yet He has shown us immeasurable mercy and grace upon grace. We ask you to pray with us as we pray for healing from God, fully convinced that He is able and willing, while also submitting to His perfect will for our lives, whatever that may be, to use us for His glory.
We never feel ready or prepared to receive news like this, but God has chosen us in His wisdom to enter a season in which our faith is tested. Not that He tests us sadistically just to see if we will endure, but rather that all who look upon us in this time may see that the testimony of our faith is true and strong and holds firm even in difficulty. Our faith is one that endures and we cling to this truth drawn from Scripture and expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism:
“What is your only comfort in life and death?
That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil.
He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation.
Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”
We still have so much uncertainty, and it’s possible we could receive more bad news, but we are certain that yesterday held no surprises for God and neither will tomorrow. We are also certain that He loves us fiercely and eternally, and that whatever the future brings, it comes to us from His hand. Therefore we trust that He who holds our very lives and future in His hands is working all things together for our good and for His glory.
In Christ,
Orrin and Kara Witt
Soli Deo Gloria
