Memoir of Doreen H. Davis by Dallas Davis

Born Again May 10, 1987 Homecoming April 7, 2003 Greater New Hope Apostolic Holiness Church 3012 N. 22nd St. Tampa, Fl. 33605 Bishop James W. Anderson Officiating

Only Only What What Y You ou Do Do For For Christ Christ W Will ill Last! 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I was baptized on the same day my husband was in May of 1987 in Christ Gospel Church, in Whitesborough, New Jersey. I started attending services and Christian counseling with my pastor Elder Edgar Robinson. My eyes opened. I peered toward the speckled ceiling, trying hard to focus, but to no avail. Where am I? I thought to myself. I opened my mouth, however no sound came out. I tried to turn my body, but I could only lift my head. That’s when it happened: all the nurses came running toward me, I could hear loud chatter coming from every direction, but couldn’t make much sense of what had happened to me. I remember hearing a male nurse calling toward the nurses’ station. “Call her doctor! Call her doctor! She’s awake, she’s awake, she’s alive!” I beckoned to him, and as he walked toward me, I motioned with my hands, that I wanted to sit up. He pulled my arms and I sat up, with my legs dangling from the side of the bed, I motioned for a drink. He handed me a cup of water. “Slow,” he said, “drink it slow.” As I drank the water, I could actually feel the dryness leave my throat. I asked “Where am I, and what has happened to me?” He sat back in a chair and this is my testimony through his eyes. I entered the operating room for emergency surgery, and I had lost so much blood that my body went into shock and I went into a coma. While in the coma I had difficulty breathing, so they administered oxygen. My PH level was so low that if my heart had stopped, there would’ve been nothing in my body to revive me, so there was a DNR on my chart (Do Not Recessitate). He continued to tell me that I had been there for 45 days and he really couldn’t tell me any more except I was alive, and now I was awake and it’s some kind of crazy miracle, and he really couldn’t explain it any further. I had to wait until the doctor got there. I remember feeling very tired and overwhelmed, so I asked to lay down for awhile. He laid me down, and I slept.

The next thing I remember is the doctor standing at the foot of my bed. I turned my head and looked at him, he smiled and said “Hello Doreen, or should I say hello miracle.” I smiled and asked what had happened during my surgery. He said “You had a hysterectomy and we found some cancerous tumors, 6 to be exact. It doesn’t look good, but if you do what I tell you, you’ll have a chance. With chemotherapy and radiation, you will have a chance to live 6 months to a year, and without it maybe 3 months.” Well, that was in 1989. I chose not to have chemotherapy and radiation because I wanted my quality of life, and I knew doctors only practice medicine. God is the author of medicine, and every time I go into the doctor’s office they refer to me as the miracle lady: the modern day parting of the Red Sea. The kind of cancer I was diagnosed with (Non-differential Sarcoma), is so severe that no one can live a normal life with it. During this time, all of my Doctor consulting was private. No one else knew about the tumors; including my husband. I carried six tumors the size of grapefruits. Days, months, and even years of my memory were gone because of the coma. Even simple things like using a can opener or recognizing a microwave and knowing what to do with it I had to learn over again. So Dallas, my six year old daughter taught me. My husband planned a concert before I got sick which he never canceled with New Jersey Mass choir. We had that concert to raise money for a Christian music store we were trying to open. However, we didn’t sell enough tickets and the choir didn’t come. So with a wheelchair backstage and the ability to stand for a few minutes at a time, my husband and I sang to the glory of God along with the Christ Gospel Mass choir from our church. Our pastor helped us with refunds, no money was raised.

We were a two income family, and the hospital stays and the lost time at both our jobs had taken its’ toll. Early one Thursday morning about 6:00 am, in the fall of 1990 I asked Clarence what we were going to do. He said “ Let’s pray now, I’m making this up as I go along”. We had rented a U-Haul truck with no address to move to and the sheriff was coming to evict us at 1:00pm. We wanted to rent a house and a store, but the place fell through. With no money, and sheriff evicting us, the Lord blessed us with a huge three story home with a 450 sq. ft store front that was on the market for $193,000.00 . What a mighty God we serve! I prayed “Lord, let me baby-sit some children by January 1991”. Our first “baby-sitting job” was a little 6 week old girl that turned into three years, along with many other children through the foster care system. We had up to eight children in our home at one time. God had done it again. He had blessed me exceedingly abundantly above all that I could ask or even think. In April of 1991, Heaven Bound Christian Music and Video opened its doors. During all of this, my health wasn’t exactly holding up. One day while doing Dallas’s hair, I asked Clarence to take a look at me. My whole right side was down. I never stopped talking. I used my voice to praise God and got the victory over my first stroke. Over the years, I’ve had six strokes in all.

arly 1992, under the wise council

of my pastor, I told my husband about the cancer and like pieces of a puzzle, everything just fit. Where I was weak, he was strong, and where I was strong, he was weak. This bond got stronger and stronger as time went on. I can truly say â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lord I thank you for putting all the support I needed in my husbandâ&#x20AC;?. Till death do us part. After that year,1992, I started having trouble with my eyes. After extensive testing, it was determined that my loss of sight was caused by too much oxygen to the brain which caused optic nerve damage. Soon after I lost my ability to focus, the New Jersey Commission for the Blind came to my home and labeled all of my appliances, taught me how to walk with a cane, and attempted to teach me Braille. However with the lack of sensitivity in my fingertips, this form of communication was impossible. The government then labeled me legally blind, and I wore glasses as a formality, nothing more.

In December of 1992, we were in our first Christmas parade. I sang part of a Christian rap song and we won 3rd place. It was at that time when my husband and I began singing in public and producing our first album for the pleasure of blessing our customers at Christmas time. It was taken seriously, and thus named “Masterpiece”. 1993 was a very quick paced year. We cared for Foster children constantly and God blessed me to enhance their lives: one case at a time. Once case workers noticed this, we began caring for the children with the most trouble, that God may help them too. On the other side of Grace Manor, the name we gave to our home, was this 450sq. ft. store that wasn’t making ends meet. So my husband started pushing, and I got right behind him, pushing with everything I had. This resulted in long hours when I was feeling good. This I am sure resulted in the following multiple strokes and hospital stays. On one such occasion, one of our customers had a missionary prayer team. They came to my hospital bedside, laid hands on me, and I felt heat. The next time I was x-rayed, there were 5 tumors instead of 6. However, as soon as I was feeling better, I’d get back up and push again. We began promoting Christian concerts. They were not small productions, but rather large, full productions with lights, special effects, and million dollar insurance policies... In other words overbearing.

On top of that, we lost thousands of dollars having them. However Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grace made up for our financial mistakes. His mercy saved hundreds of souls. During the next hospital stay, two children ran away from our home and we decided to invest in the kids that had no where else to go. Every year now for the past 6 years my husband and I had talked about having a store on the Wildwood boardwalk and here comes the story of 1994. In January of each year, I see that gleam in my husbandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye. What would it be this time? Bake sales, concerts, hoagie sales, candy sales, radio-thons, and hundreds of thousands of flyers were all in effort to raise money for the ministry. Also may I add, none of them worked. In spring time of 1994, with enough money to be dangerous, my health feeling pretty good, and less children in our home than we had in a long time, we began expeditions at the waking hours of the morning to see if there was really a need for what we wanted to do. We found runaways, kids strung out sleeping under the boardwalk... there was definitely a need there. We got the cable company to take pictures of the stores we could possibly rent in order to raise enough money to rent one of these. 7

By this time, we were a few weeks away from the beginning of the summer season. Clarence and I found ourselves outside of the boardwalk merchant’s office in our van shaking. With just enough money to sign the lease on a $28,500 summer rental agreement. We sat there for a half hour. For the first time in 7 years, we were only a few minutes away from signing a lease and doing what we had talked about, or stopping because it was too risky. Clarence asked me for my thoughts saying “ If we lose, we lose everything”. I expressed to him that whatever he chose, I was behind him all the way. If we lose, we lose together. With fear and trembling, we signed the lease. More demanding that we could ever imagine, we began ministering to really hurting people. Satan didn’t like that, and we couldn’t keep up with the rent payments. Neighboring stores tried to get us in trouble with the city, and many other weapons formed against us didn’t prosper because God delivered us from every one. By the time the police found out we were the good guys, and the city received enough letters, 67 people had received Christ and we were only $14,000.00 in debt . Oh happy day! Right after Labor Day I had been admitted to the hospital in Chippingham, VA where Clarence had found a specialist. When I returned I was so rested we headed into our second Christmas parade and won second place.

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1995: the year of wonders. Miraculous donations came in and we went to the boardwalk for another year. We took in a teenage boy whose story was so tragic that after he left us it was televised on Opera. It seemed to be around June I was in the hospital having an operation. This time it was foot surgery. I began to get headaches in the back of my neck every time I put my glasses on . I finally got to the doctor for this and what a blessing it was to find out that with a new prescription I could see again and focus! One good thing about the boardwalk ministry, is all the people God puts in your path to help you along the way. A Campus Crusade for Christ group, about 50 that year, came to the store to encourage me. You see, I was about to have another operation, this time on my gall bladder. There was this oriental boy I called â&#x20AC;&#x153;the anointed oneâ&#x20AC;? that laid hands on me along with the others at the time. The Lord blessed me to have another successful operation. That summer, we prayed, sang, and poured our hearts out to many. By the end, 357 people had received Christ. Since my diagnosis, I have never obtained my mobility, and thus weighed over 300lbs . One day, I saw myself in the mirror and was repulsed by what I saw. I then decided not to eat by the orders of my doctor, mother, husband, or family. I took control and gave God control. I started drinking 1& 1/2 gallons of water a day and 1/2 gallon of juice. I was so determined not to eat when I was told sometimes I forgot to eat altogether. Meanwhile my husband grabbed a few sponsors and asked me to help him produce a Christian talk show called Heaven Bound Talks. By this time my body was so tired, and God had already told me to move to Florida.

I tried to tell Clarence off and on for the next two years, but he wasn’t hearing me. That Christmas we took our vacation in Tampa, instead of Orlando. Instead of the usual tourist attractions, we looked at residential neighborhoods. I then decided to permanently move to Florida. Clarence cried. When we got back to New Jersey I was so excited I immediately got the kids to begin packing up our house. Clarence finally came around (and that was a good thing, because I was going with or without him). Easter time of 1996 we flew down to Florida to look for a house. Healthwise, I was feeling pretty good and was able to walk for awhile without using my chair. We put our money down on a house that we agreed on in Riverview, Florida. However, after one week after we got home, the deal fell through. God blessed us then to look at some houses on video tape. We selected one that was owned by a church starter . They had already sold the house, but their deal fell through: just like ours. They needed to sell, and we needed to buy. However, we couldn’t because we were in New Jersey and wouldn’t be in Florida until June of 1996. The Seller of the home, Bro. Jiminez, and my husband made arrangements to buy the house over the phone, and he was sick so they prayed together a few times. Mr. Jiminez died before we got there in June, but he told his wife and family to make sure we got the house because it belongs to us. So in June of 1996, what God had told me to do was coming to pass. With no contract, or any legal binding of any kind, by faith we moved into our home in Plant City Florida. The Jiminez family, with no money, let us take possession of their house with open arms. (And by the way, when I moved to Florida, God had blessed me to pass two more tumors and now there were only three.)

Because of my medical history, no one wanted to loan us the money to buy the house we were living in. My husband and I took turns on giving up, but God was faithful. Ten months after we moved in we settled the mortgage. Soon after that I passed tumor number four. A trip to Philadelphia resulted in an insect bite of somekind. The infection was so bad that it had to be cored out by surgery. I had one bite on my leg, and another on my side. These wounds were deep and had to be packed with gauze. 11

The day I was to leave the hospital, I was waiting on a nurse to change the gauze dress ing on my side. I looked down beside me on the bed and saw a lot of blood. I touched this ball of blood with my finger and it felt like silicone. I called the nurse in, and she got very excited when she saw the size of what the hospital had deemed a blood clot. It was the size of a jumbo egg with form and shape. I called Clarence on his job and he rushed to the hospital with a disposable camera and took pictures. We knew exactly what it was, it was tumor number five. One of the most amazing facts of how God had removed this tumor from my side was that all the gauze and bandages were still in place and waiting for the nurse to change.

Before we got to Florida, I had an idea to build a Christian theme park. Clarence loved the idea and started asking God if it was of Him. On 5/9/98, while in prayer, the Lord said to Clarence the theme park will come to pass, and that I was coming home soon. God was so good to us during this time to confirm what was said in prayer. He sent his word back to our remembrance; we heard His voice down in our spirits. He also sent angels to answer the many questions, and they ministered to us in ways that was so thoughtful. Only the goodness and mercy and tenderness and grace of Almighty God Himself could show us love like that! Words come so far short of how good God has been to me. It was time to get ready to go home (Heaven). First He fixed my eyes by sending me to Dr. James P. Gills, an anointed man of God who has performed more cataract and lens implant surgeries that anyone else in the world. This was done at St. Lukes Cataract and Laser Institute in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Next the sixth tumor passed but this one broke up inside of me. My body became weaker and my legs would give way while I was walking. Looking ahead I asked God for an extension on my life. He said yes to most, but not all of the time I asked for. I was supposed to go home (Heaven) on 9/1/98. He blessed me to know on 2/2/99 that I could lay my life down and come home (Heaven) at anytime before my last day. On 2/5/99 I saw my grandmother in Heaven. She was beautiful, and could see me too. The Lord has done so much I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t possibly tell it all. Like the woman with the issue of blood, I too long to touch the hem of His garment: and He so gratefully came for me.