September 10, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when John Humphrey was born with a rare heart condition, his family’s world changed overnight. In West Des Moines, Iowa, they found strength in the compassion of their neighbors and the faith community at the Lutheran Church of Hope. Told by Ryan Buck, The Hope Story of John Humphrey shares not only the struggles of one child’s medical battle, but also the small acts of kindness and the steadfast belief that carried his family through.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
This is our American Stories, and as you know, we
tell stories about everything here on this show, and we
love hearing from you, the listeners. Your stories are some
of our favorites. Our next story is brought to us
by Ryan Buck in Des Moines, Iowa, home of our
great affiliate ten forty who. It's called the Hope Story
(00:40):
of John Humphrey because it was made for the Humphrey
family and their friends at the Lutheran Church of Hope,
their home church in West des Moines. We will be
hearing from John, his mother Jennifer, and his father Mark.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I've played baseball since I was three or four years old.
I've always loved it. Play it every single summer. It
makes me happy. I feel good when I play baseball,
especially when I pitching. Is my favorite thing about baseball.
My mom was a nurse and she listened to me
(01:25):
one day and she thought something was wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
He came in from playing basketball one day and he
was like, why, And my heart feels like it's beating
the really hard. So I grabbed my stethoscope and listened
to him.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And I could hear it, and so I went into
the doctor to get that checked out, and while he
was there, he said, you have a family history of
heart problems. I want to get you into a cardiologist
just to see.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
And doctor law walked in and brought his mentor with
him from the University of Michigan, and they both looked
at at John, and they looked at Jennifer and I
and they said John has a very serious arrhythmia that
could take his life at any moment.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
He said, there's no easy way to put this. That's
not my job to put it easy. It's my job
to take care of you. He said, you only see
beats like this or strips like these on people in
the hospital, and they have these beats like this right
before they die.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Your son could die at any time with the next heartbeat.
We don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
We don't know how he's alive right now.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
We've not seen anything like this.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The doctor said, I want to go in. I want
to put an ICD in pacemaker. He said, going into
my heart is like going into a minefield. They didn't
really think it would be successful. The likelihood of it
being successful was very low.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
We said, you're having this. He didn't want it. He
didn't want it placed. He didn't want to have to
miss any of his baseball season. It was the state
tournament was coming up, and he was not going to
let his team down.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I tried to fight it. I was like, if I
get this, I feel like my dream of playing sports
is just done. I feel like I'll be a different person.
And what if it messes with my heart or makes
it worse. I just don't I didn't want to have
anything to do with it.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
We let him. I sat on them no the bleachers,
holding an aed.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
It was a little bit emotional because and we got
the word that anytime this arrhythmia could take him out.
But he wanted to pitch, so we prayed a lot.
We prayed as a team.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I wasn't worried. I was just really at peace playing
and I was having.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
It, just a good time.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
And he went out there and he went the full game,
won the game from the mound, pitched a two hitter,
struck out fourteen, and walked one. And that kid hadn't
picked up a baseball in three to four weeks before
that game. And I greeted him as he came off
the mound, and I just looked at him and said,
(04:28):
let's say a prayer because you know, God just lifted
you up today and you certainly have inspired a lot
of people that know your story. And he just had
this big smile on his face. As we walked off
the fields.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I walked with my mom and we sat on some
benches and just kind of absorbed everything around us, and
I just came to the conclusion like, Okay, sometimes you
just have to give things up to live the best
life you can. I can't worry about this. So I
had a lot of people praying for me. My surgeon
(05:06):
he reads a devotion, his daughter send them a devotion
every day before he goes into surgery. Because we got
around in a circle, my family and then the surgeon.
We all prayed together and I hadn't read my devotion yet,
but that was actually what I prayed. I prayed that
God just guide his hands through my heart and just
do good things please, and just hope, hopefully everything works.
(05:28):
And so that was just one of those things like
God saying, hey, I'm right here with you. When I
was giving a hug to my parents saying goodbye before
I went into the operating room, I was like kind
of worried and nervous, But then as soon as I
stepped in the operating room, I just was really happy.
It was kind of undescribable, like it's weird, how in
(05:51):
the scariest what should have been the scariest time of
my life, moment of my life, I was, I think,
probably the happiest I've been ever.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
It's a great sign to see before going in, and
so John walked through the doorway and the last thing
I saw before the door closed was John sitting on
the edge of the bed laughing.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I just started smiling, and I tried to lighten up
the room because those people were probably really nervous. So
even when I laid down and right before I went under,
I was smiling and I was just like thinking, Oh,
how great is life? Even though I probably shouldn't have
had that point of view. Then it was definitely God.
(06:35):
He was definitely holding me up. He was right there,
and it was just a really really reassuring feeling like, hey,
I'm here, You're gonna be okay. And so I was
just happy, and so he just made me happy. When
I woke up, I felt like God's hand was right
on my chest and he was saying, You're okay. Everything
(06:56):
went perfectly fine. It was the best feeling I've ever
had in my life. It was all encompassing joy and
love and peace, and I just felt right right at home.
I just felt perfect, and so I kind of started
bawling right then because that was a really big, powerful moment.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
The first thing that he could say when he could
speak was glory. He beat to God with tears running
down his face. My husband said, Babe, why is he crying?
Is he hurting? I said, He's not crying because he's hurty.
(07:34):
He's crying because he realizes there is a God. There
is a God, and he is good.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Hi. Passion, Mike. Thank you for your prayers.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
I made it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
God is good. Glory to God, Thank you. Prayer is
very strong thing, and so when I woke up from surgery,
I was kind of recovering a little bit, coming back
to my senses, and I just had another aha moment, like,
oh my gosh, prayer works. And that was just one
(08:11):
of the coolest moments of the whole thing, because prayer
went from like you feel like you have to to
just like kind of say hi to God or whatever
and give thanks to more of a connection with God
and an outreach to God. Even though it was a
bad situation, it brought a lot of good out of
it because I got reconnected with people, got reconnected with myself,
(08:32):
and I discovered Christ a lot more, and I discovered
life more too. He pretty much just changed everything, changed
my whole life, really, but he changed it for the
good definitely, because I think I'm a better person now
than I was before. So yeah, stick with God for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And you've been listening to John Humphrey and my goodness,
prayer is a very strong thing, indeed, especially when you
get families and communities praying together in unit and for
a common cause. The Humphrey family story and that is John,
Jennifer his mom, and Mark his father, all of their stories,
(09:09):
so many other stories like it here in this great country,
here on our American stories,
This is our American Stories, and as you know, we
tell stories about everything here on this show, and we
love hearing from you, the listeners. Your stories are some
of our favorites. Our next story is brought to us
by Ryan Buck in Des Moines, Iowa, home of our
great affiliate ten forty who. It's called the Hope Story
(00:40):
of John Humphrey because it was made for the Humphrey
family and their friends at the Lutheran Church of Hope,
their home church in West des Moines. We will be
hearing from John, his mother Jennifer, and his father Mark.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I've played baseball since I was three or four years old.
I've always loved it. Play it every single summer. It
makes me happy. I feel good when I play baseball,
especially when I pitching. Is my favorite thing about baseball.
My mom was a nurse and she listened to me
(01:25):
one day and she thought something was wrong.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
He came in from playing basketball one day and he
was like, why, And my heart feels like it's beating
the really hard. So I grabbed my stethoscope and listened
to him.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And I could hear it, and so I went into
the doctor to get that checked out, and while he
was there, he said, you have a family history of
heart problems. I want to get you into a cardiologist
just to see.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
And doctor law walked in and brought his mentor with
him from the University of Michigan, and they both looked
at at John, and they looked at Jennifer and I
and they said John has a very serious arrhythmia that
could take his life at any moment.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
He said, there's no easy way to put this. That's
not my job to put it easy. It's my job
to take care of you. He said, you only see
beats like this or strips like these on people in
the hospital, and they have these beats like this right
before they die.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Your son could die at any time with the next heartbeat.
We don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
We don't know how he's alive right now.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
We've not seen anything like this.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The doctor said, I want to go in. I want
to put an ICD in pacemaker. He said, going into
my heart is like going into a minefield. They didn't
really think it would be successful. The likelihood of it
being successful was very low.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
We said, you're having this. He didn't want it. He
didn't want it placed. He didn't want to have to
miss any of his baseball season. It was the state
tournament was coming up, and he was not going to
let his team down.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
I tried to fight it. I was like, if I
get this, I feel like my dream of playing sports
is just done. I feel like I'll be a different person.
And what if it messes with my heart or makes
it worse. I just don't I didn't want to have
anything to do with it.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
We let him. I sat on them no the bleachers,
holding an aed.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
It was a little bit emotional because and we got
the word that anytime this arrhythmia could take him out.
But he wanted to pitch, so we prayed a lot.
We prayed as a team.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
I wasn't worried. I was just really at peace playing
and I was having.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
It, just a good time.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
And he went out there and he went the full game,
won the game from the mound, pitched a two hitter,
struck out fourteen, and walked one. And that kid hadn't
picked up a baseball in three to four weeks before
that game. And I greeted him as he came off
the mound, and I just looked at him and said,
(04:28):
let's say a prayer because you know, God just lifted
you up today and you certainly have inspired a lot
of people that know your story. And he just had
this big smile on his face. As we walked off
the fields.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I walked with my mom and we sat on some
benches and just kind of absorbed everything around us, and
I just came to the conclusion like, Okay, sometimes you
just have to give things up to live the best
life you can. I can't worry about this. So I
had a lot of people praying for me. My surgeon
(05:06):
he reads a devotion, his daughter send them a devotion
every day before he goes into surgery. Because we got
around in a circle, my family and then the surgeon.
We all prayed together and I hadn't read my devotion yet,
but that was actually what I prayed. I prayed that
God just guide his hands through my heart and just
do good things please, and just hope, hopefully everything works.
(05:28):
And so that was just one of those things like
God saying, hey, I'm right here with you. When I
was giving a hug to my parents saying goodbye before
I went into the operating room, I was like kind
of worried and nervous, But then as soon as I
stepped in the operating room, I just was really happy.
It was kind of undescribable, like it's weird, how in
(05:51):
the scariest what should have been the scariest time of
my life, moment of my life, I was, I think,
probably the happiest I've been ever.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
It's a great sign to see before going in, and
so John walked through the doorway and the last thing
I saw before the door closed was John sitting on
the edge of the bed laughing.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
I just started smiling, and I tried to lighten up
the room because those people were probably really nervous. So
even when I laid down and right before I went under,
I was smiling and I was just like thinking, Oh,
how great is life? Even though I probably shouldn't have
had that point of view. Then it was definitely God.
(06:35):
He was definitely holding me up. He was right there,
and it was just a really really reassuring feeling like, hey,
I'm here, You're gonna be okay. And so I was
just happy, and so he just made me happy. When
I woke up, I felt like God's hand was right
on my chest and he was saying, You're okay. Everything
(06:56):
went perfectly fine. It was the best feeling I've ever
had in my life. It was all encompassing joy and
love and peace, and I just felt right right at home.
I just felt perfect, and so I kind of started
bawling right then because that was a really big, powerful moment.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
The first thing that he could say when he could
speak was glory. He beat to God with tears running
down his face. My husband said, Babe, why is he crying?
Is he hurting? I said, He's not crying because he's hurty.
(07:34):
He's crying because he realizes there is a God. There
is a God, and he is good.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Hi. Passion, Mike. Thank you for your prayers.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
I made it.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
God is good. Glory to God, Thank you. Prayer is
very strong thing, and so when I woke up from surgery,
I was kind of recovering a little bit, coming back
to my senses, and I just had another aha moment, like,
oh my gosh, prayer works. And that was just one
(08:11):
of the coolest moments of the whole thing, because prayer
went from like you feel like you have to to
just like kind of say hi to God or whatever
and give thanks to more of a connection with God
and an outreach to God. Even though it was a
bad situation, it brought a lot of good out of
it because I got reconnected with people, got reconnected with myself,
(08:32):
and I discovered Christ a lot more, and I discovered
life more too. He pretty much just changed everything, changed
my whole life, really, but he changed it for the
good definitely, because I think I'm a better person now
than I was before. So yeah, stick with God for sure.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
And you've been listening to John Humphrey and my goodness,
prayer is a very strong thing, indeed, especially when you
get families and communities praying together in unit and for
a common cause. The Humphrey family story and that is John,
Jennifer his mom, and Mark his father, all of their stories,
(09:09):
so many other stories like it here in this great country,
here on our American stories,
Host
Lee Habeeb
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