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Help Kirsten and David manage their health care costs: LifeFunder

(LifeSiteNews) – Faith is a funny thing. Sometimes someone without it can find it suddenly. Other times people who think they have it find that they didn’t have it at all, but only find it after searching for almost a generation.

My guests on this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show are my old friend David MacDonald and his wife Kirsten, who share their conversion stories to the Catholic faith, and tell me about the miracles that have occurred in their lives in the face of serious illness.

David tells me he was raised in an atheistic home and looked for attention growing up. Finding that he had a talent for music, he began playing guitar at the age of eight, eventually starring on hit Broadway shows. It was during this time, however, that David was involved with three abortions and, for a brief time, with the LGBT community. In the midst of singing in a U.S. national tour of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats, he suffered a vocal hemorrhage as a result of a lifestyle filled with promiscuity and drugs.

After he left the stage, David got involved in the New Age movement, and while on a trip to Montreal to visit a guru, he visited the tomb of St. Andre Bessette at St. Joseph’s Oratory and experienced a radical conversion in front of a crucifix, eventually leading to the Catholic faith. “I just lay in front and I heard myself say this little prayer,” he tells me, emphasizing that he knew nothing about Christianity or Christians. “‘Jesus, I don’t know you,’” he continues. “’I don’t know your people. I don’t even know if I like your people. But I believe you know me.’ And then I just put my head down on the ground … and gave my life to Jesus at that moment.”

Eventually David’s voice returned, and David began attending the March for Life in Canada, writing its theme song and acting as a witness to the LGBT community for living alone as a celibate, as well as running a website for those interested in the Catholic faith. It was when he visited the Church of the Annunciation at Nazareth while coming back from India that he heard a call from Mary Herself to marry his wife.

According to David, he heard a voice in his head telling him to marry Kirsten, repeating the command three times. David had previously met Kirsten, an evangelical at the time, because of her questions about the Catholic faith, though had been avoiding her because he was attracted to her in spite of his sense that he was called to live celibately. “And all of a sudden, the love I had for Kirsten just burst … from my stomach right up into my whole body,” David explains. “And I just felt, well, I have permission to go forward with Kirsten here.”

The two were married in their forties, and did not expect to have children, with Kirsten suffering two miscarriages. However, Kirsten had a mystical experience in Poland while they were visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa after Mass. When the two returned home, they found that Kirsten was expecting. The following day, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

They also tell me about a little miracle that happened to Kirsten when pregnant with their daughter Adessa. While in the second trimester, Kirsten had lymphnodes removed to perform a biopsy. Having refused any medication because of the pregnancy, Kirsten was told she would be in a terrible amount of pain and could not move without difficulty. When she got home, she prayed to an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa asking for the pain to go away. Within 16 hours, the pain disappeared entirely, and she could move perfectly.

Seeing the little miracle, David explains that he thought that the cancer would not return. Every day he would pray over Kirsten’s breast and womb, asking God to remove the threat of Haman against the life of Mordecai, comparing the situation he found himself in to that of the book of Esther in the Old Testament, and reading a chapter of Scripture every day.

As God’s Providence would have it, the day David read about the hanging of Haman for plotting the death of Mordecai and the Jews, Adessa was born. “You can’t make this stuff up,” David stresses. “It was just … it was a miracle to me. It was just an assurance … of [God’s] grace and love for us.”

It has been six years since Kirsten was cancer-free. Three years ago, however, Kirsten began tripping while running a 5K in their backyard. David’s first worry was a return of the cancer, and despite difficulties with the Canadian health care system, found doctors that could if Kirsten had cancer. According to the doctors’ tests, Kirsten did not have masses but a shadow that could indicate amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“And so [the doctors] recommended us over to a neurologist,” David tells me. “And finally, when we got into the system, we were good in terms of the care we needed. And Kirsten went to the clinic and … they diagnosed her with ALS.”

Kirsten can no longer move her legs, her feet, and her hands, nor can she speak save through a communication device that follows the track of her eyes over a keyboard. David notes that the situation is providential, telling me, “I have a background in assistive technology for people with disabilities. It’s like God was … preparing me for this moment. You know, Jesus was saying, ‘Okay … you’re gonna need to [use] everything you’ve learned.’” He and Adessa have since recorded a song for Kirsten about the ordeal.

“We’re … of course praying for a miracle,” David continues. “We know [the] Lord’s capable [of it]. We don’t know whether the Lord wants her there with Him or whether He wants her here with us. But we know he has good plans. … And we’re just praying … that the Lord’s will be done.”

“We’ve seen miracles in our life before,” David concludes. “We just don’t know what kind of miracle the Lord’s gonna work this time.”

The MacDonalds have set up a LifeFunder for their health care costs, which can be found by clicking here.

The John-Henry Westen Show is available by video on the show’s YouTube channel and right here on my LifeSite blog.

It is also available in audio format on platforms such as SpotifySoundcloud, and Acast. We are awaiting approval for iTunes and Google Play as well. To subscribe to the audio version on various channels, visit the Acast webpage here.

You can send me feedback, or ideas for show topics by emailing [email protected].

Help Kirsten and David manage their health care costs: LifeFunder

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John-Henry is the co-founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com. He and his wife Dianne have eight children and they live in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, Canada.

He has spoken at conferences and retreats, and appeared on radio and television throughout the world. John-Henry founded the Rome Life Forum, an annual strategy meeting for life, faith and family leaders worldwide. He is a board member of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family. He is a consultant to Canada’s largest pro-life organization Campaign Life Coalition, and serves on the executive of the Ontario branch of the organization. He has run three times for political office in the province of Ontario representing the Family Coalition Party.

John-Henry earned an MA from the University of Toronto in School and Child Clinical Psychology and an Honours BA from York University in Psychology.

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