Middle and Upper School Chapel: The Real Challenge Behind the Ice Bucket Challenge

Brook Hill parent Christi Wyatt-Zimmerman shared the story of her diagnoses and current battle with ALS during both MS and US chapels this week. After sharing with our students about how the current disease is both terminal and incurable, and recounting how she was diagnosed, she then shared with students about how the disease impacted her faith.

As part of a public conversation with Dr. Ward, Christi told students that God really can “work all things together for the good of those who love Him” (Romans 8:28), even when the obstacle is something as overwhelming as a deadly disease.  She also quoted a passage of scripture that she had previously shared with struggling Christians in Peru. When threatened with death in a fiery furnace because they refused to worship an idol set up by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.  If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.  But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18).

Christi affirmed that God can certainly heal her, but even if God chooses to let her die from the disease, she still chooses to follow Him. She said that the greatest things students could do for those struggling with ALS, even more meaningful than the ice bucket challenge, was to pray for the families of those affected.

At the conclusion of the high school chapel, Christi, her husband, J. D., her son Jordan, and friends Karen and Chad Niles joined middle school principal Tammy Hayes, upper school principal Michelle Rozell, and academic dean Brian Nelson in an ice bucket challenge, where the boys varsity soccer team had the honor of pouring ice-water on all eight of them.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgrAOHbQybc&w=560&h=315]

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