MOUNT VERNON — The 11th annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast unfolded Saturday morning at The Dan Emmett Conference Center. The event, said its organizer, Paul Dove, DDS, is designed to “recognize, honor and pray for our leaders.”
To that end, local politicians stood to be recognized for their service by Mount Vernon’s Mayor, Richard K. Mavis, and to be prayed for by the Rev. Jonathan Fettig.
Mount Vernon residents Liz and Sam Springer told the painful story of losing two sons to spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease.
“There is no cure, even today,” said Liz, “and the disease is always fatal.”
Jordan Samuel Springer, their first son, died before his second birthday; Caleb Ryan Springer died when he was 7 months old.
“It’s a choice,” said Liz, “how you deal with things like that ... you have a choice to turn away from God or turn to God. God does answer prayer ... he hears you, but sometimes he doesn’t give you what you want. He has reasons, because he’s in control.”
Sam Springer told of the adoption of their twin sons, Justin and Austin, 11 years ago, and the several ways God intervened in Topeka, Kan., where the babies were born and the details of the adoption were carried out.
Adrian Branch, basketball star at the University of Maryland, second-round draft pick with the Chicago Bulls in 1985, a member of the Los Angeles Lakers when that team earned an NBA world championship in 1987, and television color analyst with the Bobcats in Charlotte, N.C., was the featured speaker.
Branch gave his testimony and explained his ninth-grade basketball coach’s definition of the word “champ,” in which the letters stand for “courage, heart, attitude, motivated and persistent.” He said he has many heroes, but his favorite is Mother Theresa, because “she had a simple faith and she changed the world.”
The a cappella group One Accord provided special music, and the ROTC cadets at the Knox County Career Center presented the colors at the start of the event.
