On Friday of this past week, My dear friend and coworker, Dewayne, Liebrandt lost his mother. Glenna Makela passed from this life into the next after losing her battle with ovarian cancer. While I have known Dewayne for many years we became very close as we worked together in a deaf church plant here in Colombia. Our friendship extended beyond our joint ministry as we became hunting buddies and friends in sharing many aspects of life and ministry.
Dewayne was here in Colombia on an urgent trip to help get the deaf church established on its own after its rapid growth had made the shared meeting place at the Normandía church uncomfortably crowded. His mother was then in the terminal stages of the disease but the physicians felt she still had several months on this earth. Shortly after his arrival she took a sudden turn for the worse. We worked feverishly to get his reservations changed and he flew home last Thursday. His mother succumbed to the disease on Friday morning, barely twelve hours after Dewayne’s arrival back in the States.
We grieve with Dewayne and his entire family. We extend to them our heartfelt sympathy in this time of loss. We are with them in prayer and in our thoughts as they pass through this sad and difficult time. One of Glenna’s last acts on this earth was to provide a scholarship for promising young deaf preachers so they could study. Dewayne has asked that instead of flowers any money be used to further that legacy of providing scholarships for deaf preachers. In that way his mother will have a legacy that lives on in the lives and ministry of many others. Please join me in solidarity with the Liebrandt/Makela family in this heart-wrenching time by lifting up your prayers for a special measure of God’s peace in her passing.