A Celebration of Life

What do you say to a family when they lose a precious child? Seth was not just any child, he was special! Seth was born with Crouzan's syndrome, a craniofacial abnormality that causes the skull not to grow properly. As the child ages, the brain grows and needs more room. He had already been through many surgeries to enlarge his skull and face to allow for growth. At his young 3 1/2 years of age, he had suffered much and become way too familiar with hospitals, airplanes, needles and pain.

On September 26th, he had a breakthrough surgery by a world reknown surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Fearon, at Medical City in Dallas, Texas. Hours after his arrival in ICU, he stopped responding, and eventually went home to be with Jesus. Shortly after, his mother Tesa wrote the following:

"Well I am typing the words that I thought I would never have to write for a child of mine. But Seth has gone home to be with Jesus. In just a matter of hours things went from just fine to terrible. Basically somehow Seth got a blockage that restricted his breathing, which caused his brain to swell, which then caused blood flow to stop in the brain. Leaving Seth in a permanent coma. We don't know why these things happen, but I can tell you that Steve and I have no doubt that God will be glorified in this and that God called us here to this time and place for this surgery. It didn't quite turn out as we had thought, but God is in control of all things, and now Seth is no longer suffering. Seth has had a long journey over the last 3 1/2 years, and he has suffered from more things than other Crouzon's Kids. Other kids can run, jump, and play and Seth could never do that. Seth has also suffered from some seizures, cronic headaches, continuous sweats and other unexplained things that we could just never figure out completely. So now we just now that his sweet spirit is with Jesus and Grandma Nancie and Uncle Carl. His sweet spirit just wanted to do so much, but his body was just so frail and weak and unable to do thos things....Right now we are in the process of looking at getting Seth's organ's donated to seeif his little life can continue to touch others. Well we are going to try to get home as soon as we can. We miss Colby tremendously and so far the hardest part is knowing how brokenhearted Colby will be, because he and Seth were the bestest of friends. Now I am so thankful for Baby Brett and that Colby will have another best friend just like Seth....We love you all and thank you for all of your support and prayers for the last 3 1/2 years. It has been our privilege to have Seth in our lives and to love on him the best way we knew how."


I remember the first time I saw Seth was at a Saturday night after church gathering at Crosstimbers Church. We were walking out and Seth was clumsily playing, running towards me. I was watching him cause he was kinda looking like he was going to take me out! I braced myself for a collision but then he looked up and smiled at me with his special sweet smiling little face. That little 3 year old had connected with me. After that, we were blessed to have his precious mom in our women's group where we could share in their journey, their hope for his well-being and healing, their steadfast faith and trust in God. We grew to love this family from Alaska. So, when they came back to Dallas for this surgery, we prayed for them and now grieve with them. "Surely, God made a mistake", we all thought at first. But we all knew God doesn't make mistakes. Seth is in His arms now, fully healed and no longer suffering. We grieve his loss because we are selfish and desire to have the joy he brought to our lives. But we know, because we have the promises of God, that Seth's broken body has been restored and we just can't wait to see him again!

Full trust in God and bold faith is seen most clearly when things don't go the way we want, when tragedies occur and the body of Christ envelops their friends and neighbors with prayer and comfort and rises to meet their needs. We don't fully understand God's ways but we fully understand that we were more than blessed to know Seth and his family and have been pushed along in our journey to become more like Christ by our meeting. Thank you Sturman family for the privilege of sharing in your journey, for your testimony to us and for a visible and palpable faith! Thank you God for your unfailing love.

Click here for article in Alaska paper.

Isaiah 40:30-31

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

2 Corinthians 4:7- But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.