‘You are a missionary here.’ Chattahoochee Valley helps family who’s fostered more than 90 kids.
Cheryl and Hermon Myers of Valley have been foster parents for more than 90 children in 45 years — some for just a day, others until they were adults.
Three of their foster children are mentally disabled and still live with them. One of them, 51-year-old James, got a staph infection several months ago and was paralyzed from the waist down.
Donated money helped the Myers family pay for what medical insurance didn’t cover, as well as house renovations to accommodate James being in a wheelchair.
Thanks to his caregivers and prayers in the community, Cheryl said, James has regained enough strength to take steps with a walker if somebody bears his weight.
“We firmly believe God was with us every step of the way,” she said.
They call it the “Miracle for the Myers Family.” This fundraising campaign compelled five local governments in the Chattahoochee Valley to pass proclamations encouraging support.
Residents of Chambers County, Lanett, Valley, Lafayette and West Point rallied to help this family that has helped so many of them. More than $50,000 has been donated — and countless prayers were offered.
And it was divine intervention 30 years ago, Cheryl believes, that led her to become the founding director of the Christian Service Center in Lanett, where more than 200 families and 600 children this Christmas season are receiving food, clothing, household supplies or toys. It’s part of the center’s yearlong aid to more than 2,000 families.
“Going back to school after Christmas, everybody else has got on their new shoes, their new clothes, talking about what they got,” she said. “Every child deserves that same opportunity.”
The calling
Cheryl, 69, and Hermon, 71, were cotton mill workers when they became foster parents in 1974 to take care of James and two other children of relatives.
Three years later, Cheryl and Hermon had their only biological child, Christy, after seven years of trying to conceive. But they continued to be foster parents.
“We just felt that God wanted us to do it, something to make a difference,” Cheryl said.
She heeded a similar calling to help establish the center.
As a foster parent, Cheryl figured more families could keep their biological children if they could meet basic needs. She and Hermon started asking churches to help. The response was promising, but they wanted to expand the effort.
One morning in 1989, Cheryl lingered in bed and prayed about whether she should become a missionary. Then she heard what sounded like someone knocking.
“It was so real that I jumped up and ran to the door,” she said. “… I heard this voice as real as anything I’ve ever heard in my life, saying, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ It was Jesus speaking to me. ‘You are a missionary. You’re a missionary here. I have you where I want you.’”
Later that year, her reputation as an effective foster parent led to a job opportunity from the Alabama Department of Human Resources. While driving to the interview in Lafayette, she saw a sign for the East Liberty Baptist Association’s office and made a consequential stop.
“My car just turned into the parking lot,” she said.
There, she met Charles Wynn, who directed the association’s missions. They heard each other express the same vision for creating a way to help folks in need.
So she said no to the DHR job and yes to this opportunity, opening the center in a room at the association’s office in 1990. The center grew and moved in 2011 to an 8,000-square-foot metal building in Lanett.
Officials at churches, schools and social service agencies refer folks to the center. The average family income for the center’s clients, Cheryl said, is about $780 per month.
The nonprofit center’s $125,000 annual budget is supported by the Valley United Fund and other donations. Cheryl is the only employee, helped by relatives and seven full-time volunteers, plus other individuals or groups that come periodically.
“People have a good heart, and people want to help,” she said. “They might not be able to come here and hand out things, but they are open to helping us to have what we need to be able to do this work.”
This year, Cheryl and her family found themselves on the receiving end.
The need
Doctors don’t know how James got the staph infection this summer, Cheryl said. The neurosurgeon, she said, told them it could have been simply from a cut on his finger.
After a few days of James not showing any progress, Cheryl and Hermon heard some of his caregivers discuss moving him to a nursing home. Cheryl and Hermon looked at each other and agreed on their response.
“That’s not going to happen,” she told them.
“That’s our son,” she said. “He has too much potential. We believe that this was all for a purpose. We didn’t know what, but we weren’t giving up for anything.”
So they decided to do what it took to move James back home. And the donations have helped them do that.
“We were completely overwhelmed,” Cheryl said. “It meant our son had a second chance at being a whole person. Whether he walked again or didn’t walk again, we wanted him to have every opportunity to have every support available to him.”
The renovations in their house, a trainer visiting twice per week and James rehabbing three times per week at a hospital have enabled him to make hopeful progress.
Shortly before James became paralyzed, the Myers family had a wheelchair ramp installed at their house to be prepared whenever Cheryl or Hermon couldn’t navigate steps.
“It was finished the week James got sick, when we thought he just had a pulled muscle,” Cheryl said. “… God knew we were going to need that wheelchair ramp before James ever needed it. We thought we were fixing it for us.”
The help
The Rev. Chuck Anderson is the Myers family’s pastor at Shawmut First Baptist Church in Valley. He asked Cheryl for permission to help the family through this crisis. She reluctantly agreed.
“It was a tough sell,” Anderson said.
Then he contacted two community leaders to boost the effort: David Guinn, director of International Sports Chaplains, and Chambers County Sheriff Sid Lockhart.
That was an easy sell.
“They’re a fantastic family,” Guinn said. “They just meet a need that we have in the community. … They have a servant heart, a giving and helping heart. It’s not with any tags. They don’t expect anything in return.”
Anderson, Guinn and Lockhart set up an online fundraising account, sent letters to people of means and organized a campaign among approximately 50 churches.
Since the “Miracle for the Myers Fund” at GoFundMe.com was created Oct. 9 with a goal of $10,000, the 36 online donations have totaled $7,070. But contributions from the churches have amounted to $45,000.
“What has happened is a bigger miracle than what we had ever dreamed of,” Anderson said.
He was referring to more than the money.
“Another way at looking at this whole matter is to see how a community rallies behind someone that has the esteem of the Myers family,” Anderson said. “We’re not talking about people of power or influence. … Nevertheless, because of their generosity and the love and graciousness that they’ve shown to the community, I really do think the community was primed.”
The Myers’ challenge turned tougher in mid-November when Cheryl pinched a nerve while lifting James. Although the week of Thanksgiving is one of the busiest times for the center, Cheryl couldn’t return to work until early December.
“I was flat on my back, and all I could do was just lay there and accept help from people — people bringing in meals, people offering to sit with our children, people offering to go to the store for us,” she said.
Paulette Ray, one of the center’s volunteers, encouraged Cheryl to accept the donations.
“They’re good people, and people know that, so they’re willing to help them,” she said.
Christy recalled seeing one of the center’s monthly clients donate a wad of cash to the Myers family.
“I knew that 22 dollars was a huge sacrifice for him,” she said.
Reflecting on the outpouring of support, Cheryl said, “It’s so much easier to help than to accept help. I’ve learned that … I felt undeserving. You don’t help people so that they’ll turn around and help you back. But it’s just given me a whole new insight into the ministry of helping and how we need to approach people.”
All of which prompted Cheryl to think about the Christmas season in a different way.
“I am more thankful and more grateful for what we have and what’s been given to us and just truly celebrating the true meaning of Christmas,” she said.
That meaning, she said, is “not about the gifts; it’s about building relationships with people, … making sure that they know people really care about them.
“When you get on Facebook, you read so much negative stuff happening, but look at the outpouring of love in this community. It could be like that everywhere. It should be like that everywhere. And we need to do more to foster that love all year long instead of waiting until Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
Cheryl plans to retire in July, when she would become a full-time volunteer at the center and Christy would become director.
“It makes my heart feel so good that I know this is going to go on for a long, long time,” Cheryl said.
Christy, 42, volunteers at the center while training to succeed Cheryl. Thinking about the community’s support of her parents, Christy gushed with gratitude.
“From the time I was born, they would always give anything to anybody,” Christy said. “The last dime they had, they would give it to you. Seeing everybody rally together to help them, it’s just amazing. … For them to see their own Christmas miracle this year, it just melts my heart.”
