Go Fund Me Donors
To the Earth Angels Who Got Me to Mexico
Some thank-you's are so big that it takes years to find the words. This is one of them. I've carried this gratitude quietly in my heart for a long time, and today I finally want to say it out loud, to every single one of you.
There was a season of my life when I was fighting for it.
It began before my fourth child was born, in 2015. At first it came as a strange wave of symptoms that would rise and then pass — but every time it returned, it returned stronger. Fatigue that no amount of rest could touch. A creeping paralysis. Until, at its worst, I was having episodes where I couldn't speak or even move — my words would disappear, I would lose my ability to speak English, my breathing would tighten, and my vision would blur and fade. For ten years I searched for answers, specialist after specialist, test after test, while something I couldn't name kept taking pieces of me. There were nights I was genuinely afraid I wouldn't see the morning.
Then, in Mexico, in a single day, a doctor found what a decade of searching hadn't: a hiatal hernia that had been quietly wreaking havoc inside me for years. They also suspected Lyme disease. But before I could be strong enough to fight the Lyme, I needed surgery to repair the hernia first.
My husband wanted me home in the United States, where we had insurance — so I came back. But here was the impossible part: there wasn't time. The authorizations, the referrals, the approvals only crawled along — the slow machinery that would have kept me safe on paper while I ran out of time in real life. And I was fading fast. Lyme was taking me over — my sight, my ability to walk, to write, even my breath. I couldn't wait any longer. I had to get back on a plane to Mexico, and I had to go now.
So I went, with almost nothing.
I left with the clothes I was wearing, my ID, and two little bottles of life-saving essential oil — lavender and melissa oil — that I held onto like anchors, breathing them in, adding them to my water, and steadying myself every time the fear rose up. That, and faith—the stubborn, tearful kind of faith that answers were waiting for me, and that somehow I would make it back.
What I did not have was the money to make it happen.
I need you to understand how hard it was to ask. We had insurance. We had poured everything we had into our business and into helping other families — and then poured out more than we had, spending all of it, and beyond it, chasing answers year after year. To come to the very end of my own resources and have to ask others for help embarrassed me to my core. But I was fading, and this was my one last attempt. So, with what little strength I had left, I asked.
That's where you came in.
I still can hardly believe what happened next. Friends. Family. People I had never even met. Some of you gave twenty dollars you probably needed for something else. Some of you gave far more than I ever could have asked. Some of you left no name at all—just a quiet, anonymous gift and a prayer. And the messages poured in: praying for you… hang in there… you've got this, girl. You will never fully know what those words did for me in the middle of the hardest fight of my life.
The response undid me. In a single day, friends had given nearly six thousand dollars. When I told my doctor — in Spanish — that I didn't have enough to cover the surgery and the treatment, but that friends had already donated almost six thousand dollars in just one day, he wouldn't hear a word of worry. They would work to save my life, he said, and we would sort out the payment later.
In just two months, you gave more than twenty-five thousand dollars. My grandparents quietly covered almost half of it, and my sister-in-law gave a gift so generous it took my breath away.
Because of you, I made it onto that plane. Because of you, I reached the doctors I trusted. Because of you, I had the surgery my body so desperately needed. I survived—and I got to come home to my children.
I don't say this lightly, so please truly hear me: you were my life-savers.
The love reached me even in that hospital room, where I lay alone. Friends in Canada called with healing in their voices — praying over me, breathing life into me with their words. One dear friend would hold a little gemstone heart close and touch it as she prayed for me. And Ashley Stone and her beautiful girls painted pictures for me — bright, tender things I kept near my bed and returned to again and again whenever the loneliness pressed in.
It took weeks before I could speak English again, before I could sign my own name, before I could walk. In that in-between, when the words wouldn't come out of my mouth, I could still type them out slowly, one letter at a time — so I held tight to the letters, the paintings, and the comments pouring in on Facebook: so many people cheering, praying, checking in. And back home, while I was away, family rallied around my children — dreaming up their own little fundraisers to help, and leaning on our church family, who carried us through a brief season, even with meals. I am forever grateful.
I think about that often now, on the most ordinary days—days when I can speak, and breathe easily, and see my children's faces clearly across the room. The ordinary has become a miracle to me, and you are woven right into it. Every one of you: the twenty-dollar gifts and the enormous ones, the named and the anonymous, the ones who couldn't give a cent but flooded me with prayers—you were part of my happy ending. You still are.
So from the deepest, most tender place in my heart: thank you. Thank you for seeing me when I felt invisible. Thank you for catching me when I was falling. Thank you for believing there would be a happy ending, and for helping me write it.
With Gratitude
And because every single name matters to me, here you are — the earth angels and godsends who helped get me back to Mexico:
Angela Rogers
Anne Masarik
Bill Shindelar
Christy Martinez
Gabe & Tiffani Cisneros
Heather Leavitt
Jaime & Matt Terce
Jon Lamers
Kalani Atkinson
Kevin Lindström
Kristin Petersen
Leah Smith
Leslie & Jess Shurbet
Lisa Morison
Margaret Barrett Brough
Marie Remkes
Melanie MacDonald
Misti & Brian Hauser
Monica Sawyer
Paula Willey
Rachel Connor
Rachel Whaley
Rebekah Nixon
Robert & Wendy Ashman
Ryan & Paula Imlay
Shauna & Andrew Wolferts
Teresa Springall
…and eighteen more, given anonymously or without a full name. I never saw your faces, but I felt every prayer.
And while my husband was away working, my sister, my brother, and my sister-in-law wrapped my children in love and watched over them so that I could go. I could never have left without them.
To every one of you — the ones who gave, the ones who cheered, the ones who sent up prayers, the ones who held my family together back home, and the ones who never left a name — I love you. I always will.
With much love, Steffanie
This is my own story, shared from the heart—not medical advice. If you or someone you love is facing a frightening health crisis, please reach out to qualified medical professionals and to the people who love you. You don't have to fight alone.
Some thank-you's are so big that it takes years to find the words. This is one of them. I've carried this gratitude quietly in my heart for a long time, and today I finally want to say it out loud, to every single one of you.
There was a season of my life when I was fighting for it.
It began before my fourth child was born, in 2015. At first it came as a strange wave of symptoms that would rise and then pass — but every time it returned, it returned stronger. Fatigue that no amount of rest could touch. A creeping paralysis. Until, at its worst, I was having episodes where I couldn't speak or even move — my words would disappear, I would lose my ability to speak English, my breathing would tighten, and my vision would blur and fade. For ten years I searched for answers, specialist after specialist, test after test, while something I couldn't name kept taking pieces of me. There were nights I was genuinely afraid I wouldn't see the morning.
Then, in Mexico, in a single day, a doctor found what a decade of searching hadn't: a hiatal hernia that had been quietly wreaking havoc inside me for years. They also suspected Lyme disease. But before I could be strong enough to fight the Lyme, I needed surgery to repair the hernia first.
My husband wanted me home in the United States, where we had insurance — so I came back. But here was the impossible part: there wasn't time. The authorizations, the referrals, the approvals only crawled along — the slow machinery that would have kept me safe on paper while I ran out of time in real life. And I was fading fast. Lyme was taking me over — my sight, my ability to walk, to write, even my breath. I couldn't wait any longer. I had to get back on a plane to Mexico, and I had to go now.
So I went, with almost nothing.
I left with the clothes I was wearing, my ID, and two little bottles of life-saving essential oil — lavender and melissa oil — that I held onto like anchors, breathing them in, adding them to my water, and steadying myself every time the fear rose up. That, and faith—the stubborn, tearful kind of faith that answers were waiting for me, and that somehow I would make it back.
What I did not have was the money to make it happen.
I need you to understand how hard it was to ask. We had insurance. We had poured everything we had into our business and into helping other families — and then poured out more than we had, spending all of it, and beyond it, chasing answers year after year. To come to the very end of my own resources and have to ask others for help embarrassed me to my core. But I was fading, and this was my one last attempt. So, with what little strength I had left, I asked.
That's where you came in.
I still can hardly believe what happened next. Friends. Family. People I had never even met. Some of you gave twenty dollars you probably needed for something else. Some of you gave far more than I ever could have asked. Some of you left no name at all—just a quiet, anonymous gift and a prayer. And the messages poured in: praying for you… hang in there… you've got this, girl. You will never fully know what those words did for me in the middle of the hardest fight of my life.
The response undid me. In a single day, friends had given nearly six thousand dollars. When I told my doctor — in Spanish — that I didn't have enough to cover the surgery and the treatment, but that friends had already donated almost six thousand dollars in just one day, he wouldn't hear a word of worry. They would work to save my life, he said, and we would sort out the payment later.
In just two months, you gave more than twenty-five thousand dollars. My grandparents quietly covered almost half of it, and my sister-in-law gave a gift so generous it took my breath away.
Because of you, I made it onto that plane. Because of you, I reached the doctors I trusted. Because of you, I had the surgery my body so desperately needed. I survived—and I got to come home to my children.
I don't say this lightly, so please truly hear me: you were my life-savers.
The love reached me even in that hospital room, where I lay alone. Friends in Canada called with healing in their voices — praying over me, breathing life into me with their words. One dear friend would hold a little gemstone heart close and touch it as she prayed for me. And Ashley Stone and her beautiful girls painted pictures for me — bright, tender things I kept near my bed and returned to again and again whenever the loneliness pressed in.
It took weeks before I could speak English again, before I could sign my own name, before I could walk. In that in-between, when the words wouldn't come out of my mouth, I could still type them out slowly, one letter at a time — so I held tight to the letters, the paintings, and the comments pouring in on Facebook: so many people cheering, praying, checking in. And back home, while I was away, family rallied around my children — dreaming up their own little fundraisers to help, and leaning on our church family, who carried us through a brief season, even with meals. I am forever grateful.
I think about that often now, on the most ordinary days—days when I can speak, and breathe easily, and see my children's faces clearly across the room. The ordinary has become a miracle to me, and you are woven right into it. Every one of you: the twenty-dollar gifts and the enormous ones, the named and the anonymous, the ones who couldn't give a cent but flooded me with prayers—you were part of my happy ending. You still are.
So from the deepest, most tender place in my heart: thank you. Thank you for seeing me when I felt invisible. Thank you for catching me when I was falling. Thank you for believing there would be a happy ending, and for helping me write it.
With Gratitude
And because every single name matters to me, here you are — the earth angels and godsends who helped get me back to Mexico:
Angela Rogers
Anne Masarik
Bill Shindelar
Christy Martinez
Gabe & Tiffani Cisneros
Heather Leavitt
Jaime & Matt Terce
Jon Lamers
Kalani Atkinson
Kevin Lindström
Kristin Petersen
Leah Smith
Leslie & Jess Shurbet
Lisa Morison
Margaret Barrett Brough
Marie Remkes
Melanie MacDonald
Misti & Brian Hauser
Monica Sawyer
Paula Willey
Rachel Connor
Rachel Whaley
Rebekah Nixon
Robert & Wendy Ashman
Ryan & Paula Imlay
Shauna & Andrew Wolferts
Teresa Springall
…and eighteen more, given anonymously or without a full name. I never saw your faces, but I felt every prayer.
And while my husband was away working, my sister, my brother, and my sister-in-law wrapped my children in love and watched over them so that I could go. I could never have left without them.
To every one of you — the ones who gave, the ones who cheered, the ones who sent up prayers, the ones who held my family together back home, and the ones who never left a name — I love you. I always will.
With much love, Steffanie
This is my own story, shared from the heart—not medical advice. If you or someone you love is facing a frightening health crisis, please reach out to qualified medical professionals and to the people who love you. You don't have to fight alone.
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