A letter to Buck and Eleanor Barber (Lighthouse volunteers, 10 years of service), from a mom of a child with cancer:
We would just love for Buck and Eleanor to know how thankful we are for their work with this outstanding organization that is truly ministering and serving families dealing with childhood cancer. No one can understand the grief and loss we feel for our precious children being attacked by cancer, it is the worst of the worst situations for any parent. There are so many organizations who give a teddy bear, or a toy to the "cancer child" and though we have had our share of these "teddy bears" and "toys", only the Lighthouse Family Retreat truly helps the entire family through what it is a families worst nightmare. Your love and care for the wonderful siblings of these cancer kids is so meaningful to us as parents. We must shuffle our non cancer patient children to the back of everything and the love that is showered on them at the Lighthouse is wonderful and comes straight from the heart of God. Most importantly the time spent with the parents in "Common Ground" is so important to us as parents. We are devastated inside, we are grief stricken and live in fear and no matter how many times I hear some good meaning person say "give the worry over to God", that person has never had a child with cancer. The anxiety and stress it drives into our lives is horrendous and we will truly NEVER be the same. In our case, our son's life has been dramatically altered and therefore so has ours and that of our younger son. We want to thank you so much for spending your time ministering and listening to parents of kids with cancer, we can't pay for our own therapy in the financial stress we live under paying for treatment and prosthetics, we can't make time for it in the midst of all the overhwhelming medical news and shock, and we can't make it a priority when the priority is to fight with all we have to try and save our child (children), for these reasons we are so very grateful for the leadership in the common ground time. We can cry, shake, be overwhelmed, be desperate and just be heard and let our guard down for a few minutes. We are so grateful to Buck and Eleanor that they have chosen to do the work of God with these precious families, battling a huge beast that noone can understand. I remember Eleanor making a statement that their friends " don't understand why they do their thing all summer" (referencing their work at the Lighthouse all summer, every summer), but she just smiled and said, "It's what we do". We for one, are a family that is so thankful for this wonderful organization that is lead by people so driven to help, not afraid to dive deep into the fear and grief that we are suffering and offer hope and a smile and to just be there for us and take the load off even if just for a few minutes. We are forever grateful for the Lighthouse, but we know what makes the Lighthouse is the leadership of special people that see a horrendous need of suffering and pain in families of childhood cancer families and yet they stand, they take action and they say, I can help, I can make life better for someone else, even if just for a week, I can and will do it. We are blessed to be a part of the Lighthouse family.
