Lisa + Jessica

We believe it’s brave to ask for help. Always.

And perhaps especially when you do it for the first time, because you’ve lived your life doing the helping.

Lisa and Jessica are well-practiced at being brave. They were brave when they fell in love and had to keep it a secret from their conservative families for years. They were brave when they worked as a hospital trauma chaplain and as a nurse practitioner focusing mainly on kids with brain tumors. And they had no choice but to be brave when Jessica received the devastating diagnosis of invasive breast cancer a year and a half ago.

Since that diagnosis, Jessica has already endured 14 horrific chemotherapy treatments, a mastectomy and 25 rounds of radiation.

After every treatment Jessica is very sick for 5-7 days. She has several doctor’s appointments each week that both she and Lisa need to attend. And despite everything they’ve already endured, they still have a long way to go.

Last January, Lisa quit her job in order to be available for their family through this season. As you can imagine, that loss has made their financial situation even more difficult.

“We are working very hard to keep our daughters’ lives as normal as possible and a huge part of that is our home. And we need help. I cannot believe that I spelled that out, because we don’t ask for help and both of us DO the helping. We’ve both spent our entire careers helping and we’d love to keep it that way, but first, we need a little help. We have at least another 8 months until we get to the end of treatment. It is my greatest hope that I can stay home until then in order to support the love of my life through this hell. We are asking for any amount — as much as y’all feel is fair to get us to the end of this hell so we can get back to doing the helping.”

That’s where YOU stepped in to help. Because of our monthly recurring donors, aka TEAM LOVE, we were able to relieve them of 8 mortgage payments so they could spend their energy getting well and supporting each other, not worrying about bills.

Thank you for being the helpers. Thank you for being a safe place for people to ask for help.

*Names have been changed.