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The
Johnson Family Testimony
Our names are Tim and Cindee Johnson. Here
is our story. We'll start with me (Cindee) if that's okay.
I'm going back to 1982 here, I was 18 years old and in love (like most
18 year old girls) with my high school sweetheart. We had been dating since
1979 when I was 15 and in the 10th grade. Very much in love and thinking
that we knew everything there was to know about life then and in our future.
Mind you, we as individuals and as a couple did not have Jesus in our lives.
I guess that we were to "cool" for that. And 21 years later he still is
to "cool" for Jesus, mind you, my high
school sweetheart was and still is a good man at heart and I know that
someday he will let God into his heart and realize that there is more to
this world that the love of "his kind of fun" and of money and all the
worldly things that the word of my Lord and Savior warns us against.
Anyway, we
like most of our friends in school got married after graduation and
talked about starting a family. It took us a while to finally get
pregnant (almost 2 years). When we finally did get pregnant we (or
should I say He and everyone else) decided that all we needed was one child
to make us a
family. See, I am the oldest of 5 children of a single mother.
The last one was born when I was 17 years old. After much egging
on from my then husband and ALL of our family members I finally agreed
to have my tubes tied after the birth of my baby who was due in July of
1985. Well, everything was set for the surgery after the baby was
born but when it came down to it, I
could not do it. What ensued after that was 9 full months of
hassling and fighting with everyone over the fact that I had changed my
mind about the surgery. Finally I gave in and on May 15, 1986 I had the
surgery thus making one of the biggest mistakes in my life. Don't
get me wrong, I love my son
with all of my heart and had his father and I stayed married for the
rest of our lives (like we all think is going to happen at 18) and had
I not met my husband Tim and through him found Jesus in my life, I probably
would have been content with only my son forever even though I always felt
a great
sense of regret over what I had done. But, as you can tell that
is not what happened. My ex-husband and I divorced in 1988 when our
son was only 3 years old. I spent the next 6 years of my life wandering.
Never giving a second thought to Jesus and his great plan for my life that
was yet to be revealed to me. Fast forward to 1994, my earthly father
is diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. I decided to leave Florida
where I had grown up and come to South Carolina and spend what ever time
(6-12 months the doctors said) with him, you see I did not know my dad
until I was 18 years old and had only had 13 years with him and always
over a long distance. I thought so much of him that I named my only
child after him (Bobby). Well, I moved to SC and low and behold what
do I do 3 weeks after I get here but meet the most wonderful man I have
ever known. We fell in love immediately and some 5 short months later
(February 10, 1995) we were married. Now, to my husband Tim. Tim
is a man who grew up in the church. He comes from a large
family in a small community. But he and his 2 brothers like most
of their friends treated church as a place to go on Sunday morning because
your mom makes you go as well as to hang out with friends. He obeyed
his mothers wishes about going to church until he was old enough to decide
for himself whether or not he wanted to go. Sometimes he did and
sometimes he didn't, he always
went on religious occasions such as Christmas, Easter and the like
but rarely any other time. He too wandered through the next few years
of his life with no real sense of direction. Always claiming the
role of Christian but never really living as one. Sure he and I both
tried to live a good and moral
life. Be good to people and don't break the law, work hard and love
our families. All the things that you are supposed to do right.
Well only partly! Back to 1994, we met by chance, (chance for us - designed
by God!) God knew and still knows what he is doing in our lives everyday.
Tim
married me knowing that I could not give him a child/children.
But he also has an aunt and uncle that lives across the road from us that
had a Tubal Reversal and had a beautiful daughter who is now 9 years old.
So the thought that maybe one day we could do that too was always in the
back of
our minds. Well, we are not a family of means so it has always
felt like more of a pipe dream than something that could actually happen
one day! We now know that through God and his never-ending love and
mercy for us that anything and everything is possible. I now know
that what I did so
long ago was a sin against God the Father, he made me to fill the earth
with HIS children and I altered that plan not knowing what I was doing.
My husband did not know what he was doing either when he married a women
that could not help him follow God's plan for bringing disciples in the
world. We have both repented of our sin (this one and all sins) and
want nothing more than to one day be able to make it right with God, we
have even prayed on many occasions that God would allow us to become pregnant
without having to have the TR surgery and who knows it may still happen
if that is what He has is store for us, only God himself knows that.
But we have placed it ALL in his hands. In the meantime, we live
our lives for our God and his Son Jesus Christ and spend everyday teaching
our son the importance of following God's word in your youth and not waiting
until you are our ages
(Tim-34 and Cindee-36). Knowledge of the Word can stop you from
making a
huge mistake in your life that can last a lifetime.
Pray for us and the family we have now as well as the family God has
in store for us!! God is good to us all. For He revealed this
ministry to us!
In Christ's Love,
Tim, Cindee & Bobby Johnson
Reversal Surgery Update!
Well...After 6 airports, 2 taxi trips (to and from
Mexico), 2 cars trips (to and from Charlotte, NC) 1 bus ride, 3000 miles
and having surgery in between all of this I'm back home, whole and complete
once again :)! All of this from Friday morning @ 5:30 am when I left
the house to Monday afternoon @ 5:30 pm when I got back home. I can't
believe that I can finally say that and it not be a dream. As my
son (Bobby) told me Sunday night on the phone..."Mom, this is real now"!
I think that everybody knows that I had planned everything
down to the hour and might I add the penny. HA!!! Money wise
I did good! Time wise, it was another story! Not because of
my forgetting something, but rather because I wasn't doing Delta's schedule
:)! Let me tell you, the easiest part of the trip was the time in
Texas and Mexico itself. My only problem was getting there and getting
home. Here's the break down of what happened.....
I was supposed to fly out of Columbia, SC @ 6:45
am on Friday...@ 10:30 I was still in the airport. Delta claimed
mechanical breakdowns, mechanic accident in Augusta, GA, agent accident
somewhere? Just a bunch of stuff. Then the lady at the ticket
counter announced that there was going to be an additional delay of 3 to
4 hours if the plane took off at all. That's when I started to panic.
Finally she told me that if I could get to the Charlotte Airport that they
would fly me directly into McAllen and that I would be able to make my
appt @ the hospital Saturday morning. So that's what I did.
Drove to Charlotte, flew from there to Dallas, flew from Dallas to McAllen.
I spent the night in McAllen, went to the hospital on Saturday morning...I'll
tell you about that in a minute. To come home on Sunday, I took a
bus from McAllen to Corpus Christi, on Monday morning I flew from Corpus
to Atlanta, Ga and then onto to Charlotte because of course that is where
my truck was and then I drove home to Columbia. WEW!!!!!!
Please know this....for anyone that is thinking about
or planning to go to Dr. Perez, I would do it again in a heartbeat!!!!
Even with all of the travel snafu's.....I do not have any regrets about
going down there, even by myself. Although, I am really happy to
be home! I can tell you that everything that everyone has said about
Dr. Perez, Levi Diaz, and the staff @ Rio Bravo was absolutely right on
target!! They are wonderful!!!! They are so kind and caring...they
do everything they can to make you comfortable the entire time that you
are there. I was so hungry Saturday night and when I called Levi,
he even brought me back the biggest and might I add best tasting hamburger
and fries that I have ever had.
Dr. Perez said that like so many other women in our
situation, my op reports where not representative of what was actually
done at the time of my TL. My doctor "tried to destroy me on the
right side" he said. And he did a good job of it too! But,
Dr. Perez also said that "He may have been good @ what he did, But that
he (meaning Dr. Perez) is better!" :)!!! He had to do quite a bit
of reconstruction on the right and none at all on the left. He said
that I have 5 cm on the right and 6 cm on the left. He gave me an
80% chance of conceiving and added that if I don't conceive it will be
because of Tim not me...Of course, we all know that only God makes that
happen or not!
I feel good...today is better than yesterday of course
and tomorrow will be even better still I'm sure! I do want to let
every one know that I was blessed to have a taxi driver that was an absolute
God send. He is a Christian man and without him I don't know what
I would have done. He picked me up at the Airport (after looking
for me all day at the bus station), took me to the hotel Friday night,
picked me up Saturday morning and took me to the hospital and
then came back on Sunday and picked me up and took me to the bus station.
He even stopped at the border and took me to get Tim and Bobby a gift from
Mexico. He went with me and translated for me and even got me a better
price on the items that I purchased. I can't tell you how blessed
I felt to have him with me. He said that he went home Saturday night
and told his wife about me and that God must have put him in charge of
taking care of me while I was down there for everything to have worked
out the way that it did. He even offered to call my husband and let
him know that I was okay. Well, I guess that I have bent your ear long
enough....I love you all (BA)!!!! And without you and God, none of
this would have been possible, I know!!!!!
All Our Love,
Tim, Cindee and Bobby Johnson
TL 5/15/1986
TR 10/12/2002 (Dr. Perez)
5cm/left
6cm/right
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