SRVIVRS CONNECT

Steve Gardner lost his father as a teenager and has learned many life lessons through his tragedy. He encourages us all to choose the road less traveled and live our lives the best we can, with hope and belief in something bigger than ourselves. If these two good friends, Steve Gardner and Josh Nielson, both lost their fathers at a young age and have chosen to still live life to the fullest, so can you. Their beliefs and hope is what has carried both of them.

Julie Lowry shares her story of losing 4 children and how she has felt her sorrow and grief deeply under her feet and how her anchor eventually was loosened and she has been able to choose joy and peace again. She is the author of "HEAVEN SENT LOVE", and includes many other individual stories of loss and what they have experienced. This book will be coming out soon. We will keep you all posted as to when this book is for sale. It includes Layla Nielson, who is one of the srvivrs children, so there is a personal connection to this amazing book that we can't wait to get into our hands.

Shannan Nielson talks about how grief never goes away but over time in certainly can change. Time makes us stronger and helps us find tools and ways to deal with the trauma and heartache. She describes her grief as the love that she feels for her little Layla and wants to feel that grief and love whenever she thinks of her as time moves forward. So we can move forward, but never move on.

Austin and Elizabeth Crapo recap our second Annual SRVIVRS 2022 retreat and share our hopes for next year . . . and please share your ideas! At the SRVIVRS 2022 Retreat earlier this July, we were blessed to be able to connect with some of you! It was our first attempt and trial run to reach out and invite to the SRVIVRS community in one large geographic area. We all loved the connection and felt it was a success. We want this to grow!! We want anyone to come next year . . . One of the ways we as SRVIVRS want to serve you is providing a community that will walk along side your journey no matter what that looks like. So we want to know . . . What do you need as a SRVIVR? We are all in different stages of our grief or are wanting to know how to help someone we know who is grieving. So what do you need? How can we serve you?

We have had Bri Edwards on SRVIVRS Share before sharing her story of her Son’s passing from SIDS. Since then, she has published her book, A Thousand Pounds. We are excited to have her as our SRVIVRS Inspires speaker, as she shares about her book and how we can find the strength to live and love under the weight of unbearable loss.

Jeffrey Mullis joins SRVIVRS Share and tells us about his wife, Tracy Mullis, his wife and mother of their 2 daughters, who was one of the original victims of COVID-19, passing away on May 20, 2020. Her life’s motto and her last words inspired the birth of a nonprofit that helps families who lose a loved one unexpectedly. Jeffrey shared with us these words: “... I struggled for almost a year, not just with sadness from losing my wife, but with something GOD had planned for me. I spoke to a few people about this and they kept affirming to me that He will reveal it in His time. Then, right at the year mark of the day that she had been admitted into the hospital, it finally came to me. God wanted me to create a non-profit to help families that experience an unexpected loss of a loved one. We named it ‘I GOT THIS’.”

Marshall Kambestad tells his story of how his father, Loren Kambestad was his biggest mentor and coach to him throughout his life. The lessons he learned from him, both at home as well as athletically, were pertinent for both his life and while running. Having set many records as a runner himself, Loren was always by his son's side as Marshall trained as a cross country runner