+ How She Gave Her Life To Christ
Deaconess Florence 'Yemi Fawaz was born in Nigeria by a Lebanese father and a Nigerian mother, she did part of her education in Nigeria, London and New York. For over 30 years, she had a successful career as a Fashion and Photographic Model, Beauty Promoter/Consultant, Fashion Designer, Trade Show Organizer, Chef and a Restaurateur. She pioneered professional modeling in Nigeria. She opened the first modeling school and professional modeling agency in Nigeria and in West Africa as a whole.
In 1999, she was diagnosed for Congestive Heart Failure(CHF). To support people with various ailments, she founded Banner of Love International Outreach, a non-governmental organization that participates and organizes workshops, health fairs, activities on breast, prostate, and ovarian cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular services, homeless, orphanage and disaster/humanitarian relief. On the foundation's website, Yemi Fawaz revealed how she battled Congestive Heart Failure(CHF). Excerpts:
"When l was growing up in my beloved country of birth, life was not as difficult as it is now. I think, like any educated person that as a country get more civilized, life should be easier with greater opportunities for all, especially in the areas of health care, good low cost housing, good drinking water, education, electricity and food for all, but all these are the opposite. One day in 1972 I was ill with fever, and I went to the most popular hospital in Lagos, if not for a friend whose brother was a doctor in the hospital that used his influence to get me a quick treatment I wouldn't have known what to do. The point I am trying to make is, as I finished my treatment and walking out into the corridor I saw this woman with a child about 3-4 years old who was seriously sick, no one will attend to this poor woman and her baby just because she had no money for the down payment she was supposed to pay. With her baby on her lap crying out and talking to the passersby who cares to listen. As I heard all she was saying, I went back inside and talked to my friend’s brother "the doctor" who then helped this woman to treat her baby. Since then I vowed that one day I will become a doctor to help my people in Nigeria and around Africa, especially “THE CHILDREN".
"Little did I know that I was never going to be a doctor but a MODEL, and little do I know that 27 years later I was going to be diagnosed with a deadly cardiovascular illness which I was born with and never diagnosed, despite a lot of ill health on and off that I went through as a child. I remembered my grandmother always told me how sickly I used to be when I was a child, she told me how in two occasions I had fainted while I was playing with the other children, she mentioned that any time it happened it took up to about 2-3 minutes to regain consciousness again. There was no way to check what may be going on with me or my heart at that time, even now in many third world countries people cannot tell if they have problem with their heart because they cannot afford the cost of diagnosis.
"Up till the time that I can remember things on my own, at the age of nine years old I was sent to a boarding school, one day at the age of 11 years old I just noticed that I felt this lightness in my head and all of a sudden the lightness in my head moved through my neck, to my left face then to my left shoulder, moving fast to my whole leg and even at that moment if you ask me my name I could not remember. All I could remember trying to say in my mind was Jesus help me to get myself back. LORD I need you, LORD touch my body. Right there all the numbness I felt were all gone, I never even bothered to tell any one about it. I never felt these symptoms again until when I was 22 years old, but this time it was chest pain right at the center of my chest. So I got my Vicks mentor rub and I gave my chest a nice smooth slightly hard massage for about three minutes and the pain left for about two weeks, any time the pain reoccurred I will go for my Vicks rub.
"As I said earlier that from childhood I love the LORD and I have always believed that JESUS is the healer and a very prayerful Christian. (Please don’t ask me why I never go to see the doctor). First I never thought it was a serious issue. Secondly there are no good hospitals in Lagos and I told myself whenever I travel to London I will see a doctor. Having lived in London for some years I never had these symptoms, even any time I travelled to London on business there was never pain so I never see a doctor. (STUPID, YES). Two weeks after my 23rd birthday I had this cold that went on for about two weeks and I decided to go and see my doctor. The doctor asked me to go and do an X-ray of my chest, after I did the X-ray my doctor called me that he will like to talk to me. He told me that the chest x-ray was okay, but since I always travel to London I should make sure I see the doctor for my heart, so I asked him why. He said further diagnoses would have to be done since there is nothing he can do in Nigeria. He really insisted I see a doctor when I travel out. He said that I must know that a lot of Lebanese are patients of cardiovascular disease, and that because I am half Lebanese I should please see a doctor. He also said it may be nothing because when hole is found in the heart some close up as you grow, and THAT WAS THE END OF IT ALL.
"In 1985 I was pregnant. I registered with a hospital here in New York who will take care of my baby and I. When I visited the hospital some test were carried out on me. Among the test was mantoux test, the test came out positive, but I was told not to be alarmed because most people that have lived in the third world countries for so long always came out positive, does not mean I have the disease. At that particular time there was nothing much they could do because of my pregnancy until I have my baby. I had a very pleasant pregnancy never one day in my nine months was I sick. I was only about one and half hours in labor, and I had a pleasant delivery, BECAUSE THE LORD WAS WITH ME.
"After the delivery of my baby I was told they are going to isolate me from my baby until they carried out further test because of the previous positive mantoux test. I was re-tested all over and many other investigation was done on my baby and I, but I was told everything was okay. The second day the doctors came to see me, when they left my room I could hear the doctors talking to one another behind the door asking how does she carry the pregnancy for full term with the problem in her heart? But what surprises me years later was why the doctors could not even tell me the danger that is ahead of me or do something before it get worst. I think about this all the time. Even then and now I know that the LORD will take care of me. Again everything ended there.
"One year after the birth of my only child, I went from size four to size six and I love it because I really look great with this little weight of 125 lbs to 140 lbs at the height of five feet nine inches. All of a sudden two years after the birth of my daughter I noticed that my weight was increasing rapidly. (HONESTLY BELIEVE ME IS NOT FOOD, I EAT VERY HEALTHY AND I DON’T GO FOR JUNK FOOD).
"I moved back to New York in 1997, and by 1999 my weight had increased to 185 lbs. In 1999 I had an operation to remove a rapture drum. After the operation that night I went back home. At home that night all I was thinking was, I may not live to see the next day, I couldn’t sleep I felt my heart was by the top of my chest, I felt this very terrible tightness, I couldn’t breath. Later the LORD put me to sleep. I woke up next morning at about 11 am and I felt well enough to eat and rest. For about the next four days I was feeling drowsy, sweating and very tried, but I went back to work five days after. On the sixth day after the surgery I went to visit a doctor friend of mine, right there in her home I was feeling so sick that I couldn’t breath well, feeling tightness in my chest, sweating and couldn’t stand up well enough. My friend the doctor has a little treatment room in her house, she did EKG on me, she then used these words that “MY HEART IS IN A MESS" She then asked me that, didn’t the hospital carry out any test on my heart before the ear surgery? My answer was NO.
"That was when my doctor friend gave me quick prescription for Nitroglycerin to help me live until I get to the emergence because she was positive that I was having heart failure. When I got to the hospital, I was quickly given treatment. They gave me a stress test, another EKG, X-ray, Electrocardiography and other test. The result was that I have a Congestive heart failure, and that my heart is totally damage and there is nothing they can do. I ask the doctor what can be done to help my heart. I was told the condition of my heart is so bad that the only one thing that could save me is to have heart transplant, which of course will take forever because of the waiting list.
"Hearing all the doctors had to say; I asked myself what am I going to do? The answer came to me that all I can do was to bring my petitions before GOD. (I had given my live to CHRIST nine years prior before my diagnosis (BORN AGAIN). I turned my face to the wall like king Hezekiah did when GOD told him he was going to die from his illness. I called on the LORD and HE answered me. (Please this is my own testimony and my faith in CHRIST JESUS, see the doctor when you are sick and follow the doctor’s advice, which I did). Is now 14 years NO heart transplant I am well because by the strip of JESUS I was healed.In short all I am trying to say is if at the time of my own birth nothing could detect that I was born with heart deformity, today there is, and we cannot deny the babies, children and adults around the world to live a heart free diseases and other deadly diseases. SO THIS WHY I STARTED THIS JOURNEY."
Deaconess Yemi Fawaz now lives in the United States of America. She was spotted at the recently-held African Fashion Week in Washington DC, USA.
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