Karen Keeport

Hi, I’m Karen Keeport. I was born in early 1984, the fifth child of the Keeport family. The pregnancy and birth were normal. But, skipping forward a few months, the Keeports were again sitting in the hospital as I, the youngest at the time, had brain surgery for a condition called hydrocephalus.

Hydrocephalus definitely made my life extra-ordinary. I was the only kid I knew who periodically needed brain surgery for shunt revisions. Oddly, the thought of having brain surgery every five years or so never bothered me. For an energetic and adventurous kid, hanging out in the hospital, talking to just about everyone, padding down the hall in my little green slippers to the game room, and ordering my own food every day was not too bad a thing to endure.

Of course, I had my share of pain during surgeries and, when I was very young, I got a little creeped out at night. But now, when I look back on those times, I am amazed at how the loving hand of my heavenly Father covered and comforted me. While most kids I knew were more concerned about things like what Play-Doh color was best (although I too had my share of such mundane thoughts), I also experienced first-hand how short and fragile life is. I grew up in that reality.

Yet during those years, I don’t remember one time I doubted God or His plan—until I was 21, trying to finish my senior year of college, and finding myself in the hospital for surgery every three months. While I was still growing, surgery every five years was normal. Once I was finished growing, surgery three times in one year was not at all normal.

During my last surgery, while doctors tried to figure out what was going on, I sat in intensive care for two weeks, going a little crazy from sitting still for so long. For the first time ever—as great job options in media-broadcast slipped by me because I couldn’t even make it to a second interview, much less show up to start a job—I questioned God. I asked for, almost demanded, answers for what He was doing.

Instead of rebuking me, God reminded me that He was the one who had chosen me and who had entered into a covenant with me, claiming me for His own. Through various means, God made it very clear that those surgeries were purposely timed to stop me from stubbornly pursuing the career options that most people around me saw as great opportunities. The rest of my recovery time was spent looking into possibilities for serving in various missions and praying about where God wanted me to work—a search that led me to Wycliffe.

When I discovered Vernacular Media Services and how I could use my degree to bring people the words of God Himself, my attention shifted dramatically. Since then, God has repeatedly used His Word to assure me that I am back in His will and under His direction.

I hope I don’t have to go through another “senior year,” but I know that in His faithfulness, God will complete the work He has begun in me. I fully expect that my life will continue to be one that is far from ordinary.

—February 2008