Amy Wright – A gspn.tv Community Member Who Will Forever Be In Our Hearts!

Folks, I’ve been wondering what I would write in this blog post and as the time comes to type the words, I am at a loss for what to write.

Amy Wright is an amazing woman. Stephanie and I were introduced to Amy through our Lost Podcast not too long after we entered the podcasting world. She was one of the earliest gspn.tv community members, even before we started to call it a community.

Since we’ve been podcasting, we have held several meetups where folks from all over the United States and even parts of Europe have traveled all the way to Northern Kentucky just to get to meet friends that they’ve made in the gspn.tv community face to face for the first time. What many people may not be aware of, is that these meetups got started due to the inspiration of Amy Wright from Chattanooga, Tennessee and another long time friend of the gspn.tv community, Kim Fenolio.

Amy wrote to me and said that she, and her friend Holly Fe de Leon would be willing to make the trip to Northern Kentucky if we were to put together some sort of meetup. Up to that point, I still was not aware of just how meaningful the community of gspn.tv was in people’s lives. However, that first meetup was all I needed to let me know that we had something more than just another podcast going on. We had friends from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee come to that very first meetup!

That afternoon, Saturday, March 17th, 2007, Stephanie and I had the opportunity to sit down to have lunch with Amy, Holly, and Holly’s husband, Gemree. Since this time, Amy has been a constant source of encouragement and support to our entire family and to the entire gspn.tv community.

Over the years, our post office box has received a pretty steady flow of greetings cards, from Amy, for the various seasons and occasionally those came with enclosed gifts as indicated by this email here:

Amy and I have exchanged countless emails over the years and she has always been among the first to write a word of encouragement when we would share any sort of difficult news in one of our podcasts.

When we decided to start the Plus Membership program after making podcasting our full-time career, Amy was among the first people to sign up to support the content and community of gspn.tv. Not only that, but Amy actually sponsored the Plus Membership of another community member for an entire year.

One of the things that I learned about Amy is that she has suffered from Ulcerative Colitis for the past 20 years. It is for this reason that Amy’s been on my prayer list more than any other gspn.tv community member.

Last month, Amy’s doctors suspected that she may have cancer on her ovaries and said they wouldn’t know more until they were able to perform surgery. The surgery was scheduled and all of Amy’s friends eagerly awaited word that the surgery was successful and that any cancer she might have would have been completely removed.

However, our hearts sank as we read a status update on her facebook profile, I believe posted by a family member, that read… “Out of surgery now. The cancer is much greater then they thought. Opened her up took what they had too. Chemo to follow but its incurable.”

Since then, Amy’s been surrounded by friends and family. Friends from the gspn.tv community have sent flowers, posted comments on her facebook profile and have prayed for her daily.

In this photo here, Amy’s friend Holly took the time not just to visit but also to paint her toe nails. I think this photo demonstrates true friendship at it’s core.

About a week and a half ago, I read Amy’s update that stated that she’s been moved to hospice and I had sent an email to her asking if there was anything I could do or say to communicate to the community. I didn’t know what to say and I told her that I hoped my email was not out of line. She wrote back and said… “You are not out of line in any way Cliff! I am still working on getting a full update out there to my twitter/fb and all other friends! I didn’t want you to think I was ignorning ur email! I will get something together by Monday morning!”

So I’ve been waiting for this update to come through so that I would know what to communicate to you, the gspn.tv community. The update came this evening, on Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 8:15pm. Here’s what Amy posted:

So, gspn.tv community, I come before each and every one of you and beg of you to please lift up our dear friend, Amy Wright, that she may continue to feel the presence of God and His arms around her as she awaits the time where she will enter into an eternal presence of the Living God. I also ask that you pray for all of Amy’s friends and family during this very difficult time as well.

If you are a friend of Amy’s on Facebook, you can leave her a comment on her profile by clicking here. If you are not connected with her there, you can send her your love by sending a message on Twitter using @QueenAmy83.

Amy, we love you so much! We all look forward to seeing you again in the biggest gspn.tv meetup ever!

Update: Friday, April 29th 12:16pm
This morning, I received word that Amy has gone home to be with The Lord. Amy will certainly live on in the hearts of all the lives that she has touched in so many wonderful ways. I know that so many of us look forward to the day when we will be reunited with her in Eternity In Christ.

Update, Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011:
Some have asked if there were any way to send a card or note to Amy’s family. I’ve followed up and I’m told that anything that is sent to Grace Baptist Church, sent to the attention of her parents, those cards and notes would get delivered to them. Here’s the address:

Attn: Kathy & Paul Wright
c/o Grace Baptist Church
7815 Shallowford Road
Chattanooga, Tn 37421

Below is a link to other gspn.tv community members who have blogged about how Amy had touched their lives. If you are a gspn.tv community member who has written a blog post about Amy, please email me at Cliff@Ravenscraft.org and I will also link to your blog post here:

- Blog Post From Anne-Sophie Reinhardt
- Blog Post From AlisonL
- Blog Post From AngelSteph
- Blog Post From Geoff Gentry
- Blog Post From Edith Baker