Pray For Clayton

A couple of weeks ago we saw a Facebook status update that made our hearts sink. It was from one of the families who attended Faith in Hudson while Mommy pastored there. The status update read: "Please pray for my husband Clayton. He was in a very bad car wreck yesterday. They think he will be paralyzed from the neck down! He is a wonderful father of four awesome kids. We need lots of prayers."

That was from Ashley Ingram Bache. The Ingram family started Ingram's Pro Karate in New Port Richey that operated a satellite campus in Faith's Fellowship Hall. The original owners, parents John and Cindy, were members of the church. So were their children: daughter Sheri Ingram Angwin (who now owns the karate school) along with her husband Rich and two sons, plus daughter Ashley and her husband Clayton and their children. Mommy had the privilege of baptizing Clayton as well as his and Ashley's oldest son Lane back in 2007.

Over the next few days more details emerged about Clayton's condition. At first he was on a ventilator and battling possible pneumonia. He needed surgery just four days after the accident to fuse some vertebrae and decrease the pressure on his spinal cord to prevent the paralysis from spreading further. The surgery went well and his condition began to stabilize. His lungs cleared up and he was able to come off the ventilator. Control of his arms and his hands began to improve. And while he has had some tingling in his legs, Clayton's legs remain paralyzed. Just twelve days after his accident, Clayton was moved from Raleigh, North Carolina where the car accident occurred to one of the best spinal cord rehab centers in the country - the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Clayton and Ashley have been told that the rehab process is lengthy and that there are no guarantees as to how much function Clayton might recover in his legs. The type of spinal cord injury that he sustained can take as much as two years for the swelling to go down. But Clayton is a fighter (as is the rest of the family) and is determined to make the best of things. And he certainly has a lot worth fighting for - he is only 27 and together he and Ashley have four children under the age of 7. Right now family is caring for the children while Ashley is with Clayton.

Please keep the Bache family in your prayers. If you are so inclined, you can check out Clayton's progress by clicking here to check out Ashley's blog.