James Raber

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We don't feel "worthy" of having a site devoted to us, but I do think it will be convenient to keep everyone updated in one place instead of three million texts a day. (Not that I mind texts! Please text away!)  We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement more than we can express.  We are blessed beyond measure Thank you so much for visiting.
I (the wife, Marilyn /Lyn) will be posting. Wednesday night 5/23/18 My husband, James, was burned badly on his arms in a freak accident when our outside burn pile exploded on him. THANKING GOD that he was facing away and not towards it. He was 30-40 feet away when it hit him, and it was still so bad. We are also praising Jesus and thanking God for His protection since our 3-1/2 year old was nearby, but in a backhoe so she was perfectly fine. Except she saw the whole event unfold, so please pray for her sweet little heart as we sort through all this with her :(  I drove James to our local hospital in Springville where they wonderfully took care of him. The ambulance quickly picked him up and transferred him to the Burn Center at ECMC in Buffalo, NY. The ambulance staff said he was a "pigeons fart" away from needing Mercy Flight.  The humor from the ambulanceguy was wonderful :) Everyone has been amazing along the way. The staff in the burn unit is phenomenal! So thankful. So we are beyond thankful that it could have been so much worse and wasn't, but the reality is, it's still bad. And it's going to be a long journey. He's going to need skin grafting. They said it's first and second degree burns, and they do think there's some third degree. But they don't know details for a couple days still since burns continue to progress for 72 hours or so. He will be in the hospital at least 7-10 days, maybe a little more and then it still will be a long slow process once we get home. I'm just going to use this site to keep everyone updated. Thank you so much for your love and kindness and prayers! God is good. God is good to us. And God is good at being God. We are trusting Him. We know He is a miracle worker - He's done it before and He will do it again. And through the process, He gets all the glory. That's what it's all about. (We also are NOT looking for donations, just using this site to keep everyone updated on his status!) Thanks again- we extend so much love and thanks!