JER AND JEWEL’S
HIGHWAY HARMONY NEWS!!!!!!
To our faithful friends and partners:
EXPERIENCING THE LOVE & CARE OF GOD
What’s Been Going On?
Well now, that’s a very interesting question
considering what has been going on for the last couple of months. OK, first -- let’s back up several months to
Christmas time (Oh, how I wish it felt like Christmas time; it’s just plain HOT
around here these days!!) when Jer, being full of the Christmas spirit and in a
celebrating frame of mind, overate during a Christmas party held at Stacy’s
Buffet for the mobile home park we live in. How’s that for being a good wife and making up
a good excuse for my husband overeating??? When we got home he decided to walk across the
street to the gas station to get something (I don’t remember now what it was),
and on his way back he got such a pain in his chest he had to stop walking. He finally made it to the house exhausted. Well, knowing he had suffered with a hernia in
the past and he had just overeaten (finishing up with a very greasy plate of
sautéed mushrooms…I mean, really!!), we figured he must have irritated it. We started him on all kinds of natural
medicines for relieving a hernia. After
a few months of the pain getting worse and happening more often, he finally
registered at the Veterans
Hospital and had a check
up. They put him on a lot of stomach
medicines and scheduled him for all kinds of tests. Meanwhile, he had three adjustments by a
chiropractor for his hernia, did several salt water purges to take the pressure
off, and went on a Candida diet. The
poor guy started losing a lot of weight.
Now to back up even further -- a few years ago Jer
started having what they called anxiety attacks -- but they did a thorough examination
of him, hooking him up to all kinds of monitors and assuring him it was not his
heart; that if it was his heart he would be dead already. Well, this time they again did EKGs on him and
assured him it was not his heart.
Finally -- six months after the pain started, we were
getting ready to leave for Savannah
to do recruiting for a Chapel in that area that desperately needs chaplains. Jer had decided just to suffer through the
pain and deal with it when he got back home. We were going to leave right after the Herman
& Sharon Bailey Coffee Club Live show. We decided to stay two more days so we could
attend two birthday parties for some friends that we love dearly. That decision turned out possibly to be a
lifesaving decision. The TV show was
Friday, and Saturday morning after yet another salt water purge and still
having severe pain, Jer decided he wanted to go to the Veterans Emergency Room because
he thought that he might possibly have a strangulated hernia, which they say is
very dangerous. So we headed to the
Veterans hospital. Because it was slow
when we went in, they decided to give him a stress test right then and there. So, thinking he would be a while, I headed to
our friend’s birthday party to tell them what was going on and to wait for
Jer’s call to pick him up. Surprisingly,
he called before I got very far. So I
turned around to pick him up. They found something on his stress test so they
set up an EKG for the following week.
Ok, still with me so far? Good, ‘cause it gets real interesting from
here. So we delay our trip to Savannah
and go in for the EKG on which they find nothing. Yes, you heard right (I mean you read right), nothing!!!
They have told him this for the last three years. Here is where we believe that GOD intervened. They were going to schedule him for a catheterization
(where they put dye through the veins to check for blockages) toward the end of
the month, so we had plans to head up to Savannah
as soon as we got back to the house. BUT (this is a good ’but‘), the Dr. that
did the EKG said that he felt he wanted to do the catheterization that same day
and asked if Jer would mind going home and packing a bag for overnight, to
which Jer happily agreed, hoping to get it over with and get on to Savannah. So we headed home, packed an overnight bag,
and back to the hospital we went. Three hours later we are waiting in the room
after Jer’s catheterization when the Dr. came in and started drawing a picture
of a heart and showed us two 100% blocked arteries. He said the middle artery
had been blocked for years. They would
not even let him come home, but scheduled him to go to Tampa the next day and wait for surgery. When the surgeon in Tampa looked at the picture of Jer’s heart,
he saw something on the vein that goes to the back of the heart -- so on Friday,
June 27th, Chaplain Jerry underwent triple bypass surgery.
Oh, it gets even better. I was scheduled to fly out to my daughter’s
wedding in Montreal, Canada June 28th, which (of
course) I had to change. Her wedding was
on July 6th, so I rescheduled for July 3rd (which, of
course, cost more money -- which really upset me, because I had gotten such a
good deal), to come back July 8th. So, here we are with Jer having a triple
bypass on Friday and I have to leave my precious husband six days later to
attend my only daughter’s wedding (if you knew the details of our relationship,
you would know what a miracle of GOD it was for me to get to be a part of her
wedding). Only GOD could work things out
the way things worked out (sure hope that sentence made sense). Jer was in ICU
for three days and on Monday afternoon they finally moved him up to his room on
the 6th floor. The head nurse,
Wendy, came in and I told her I had a dilemma. (At this point let me tell you that we had
many people tell us how wonderful they are at this hospital and how they care
for their patients.) Well, Wendy said to
me, “Oh yes, you are flying out on Wednesday, aren’t you?” I had told her that almost a week before, and
she remembered. I said that I had a lot
of people lined up to look in on him but that I didn’t want him home alone. She said, “Oh, would you like us to keep him
here for you?” I could hardly believe my
ears. She said they would keep him until
I came home. They even gave him a
private room. Jer was being prayed for
by many believers and his recovery was so fast that they would have let him
come home three days ahead of his scheduled release had I been home.
Jer and I are both at home now and Jer is recovering
rapidly. After such a long start to our newsletter, I hope you continue to read
the rest but I felt I had to tell you the whole story to bear witness to the
goodness of GOD in taking care of and blessing HIS children. Praise GOD!!
Oh, by the way -- the wedding was beyond wonderful and
my daughter was the most beautiful bride ever (and I am not the only one that
said that). Even the cameramen said she
was the most beautiful bride they ever saw.
What’s
coming up?
Ok, the rest of this newsletter will be very short. Since Jer is healing and getting stronger he
is able to attend a few Pastors’ meetings and we are just starting to practice
our singing again. We are looking to be
at this year’s FGMA (Florida Gospel Music Association Convention), where we
will have our table set up and be singing on one of the nights. We will keep
you updated as to new concert dates when we get the ok from the Dr. to travel.
More NEW News!
At this point we are not sure when our new CD,
“Highway Harmony’s Now & Then”, will be available. Jer is recovering so
quickly that we may be back at it sooner than we thought. Please pray that GOD would supply all we need
to complete this project, as we only use funds that are specifically designated
to go toward the CD. We also need prayer
that GOD would work out the time for the recording studio.
Jer, having some extra time on his hands and needing
to keep busy (but not do anything he shouldn’t), started his paintings again. He has already completed a new airline
painting of a USA3000 and has done a charcoal of a train scene. He will be posting some of these on the web
site as prints, available for a donation to the ministry.
Our Web Site!
Please go to our web site, www.highwayharmony.com, to see our new
look and schedule. Of course we will be
adding to the schedule as new events get booked, and we will be adding some new
items to the web site for you to check out. Please feel free to write to us with any
suggestions you have that you would like to see or you think would improve the
web site.
We have no
words to express our humble gratitude for the love and support that you all
have sent our way during this trial. We
have both felt and seen the results of your prayers. It is such a blessing to be part of such a
loving and caring family of GOD. It
makes one wonder how those who are not part of the family of GOD get through
the harder trials of life. Through this
whole thing we both have had perfect peace; that peace that passes all
understanding. Thank you from the bottom
of our hearts. We love you all so much
and hope that GOD would bring us together face to face so we could thank you in
person and give you a big hug -- but if not here, we will see each other in
Glory!
That’s it for now but we will keep you updated as GOD
moves us forward.
So, until next time, as they say in southern gospel,
“See you at the house!”
As Always, Your Humble
Servants,
Jer & Jewel
Highway Harmony
PS: If you have a prayer
request, please call or e-mail us as we absolutely know that GOD hears the
prayers of HIS people and moves on their behalf. 727-366-9957(Jer) or 727-365-1878(Jewel).
