E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
jakefinkbonner.com
From left, Jake Finkbonner in kindergarten in 2005, Jake one day after he contracted flesh-eating bacteria, and Jake on his sixth birthday just eight days after the accident.
Jake Finkbonner is bouncing about, teasing his sisters and playing basketball again. That is a miracle – not only to him and his family but also to the Pope Benedict XVI.
The 11-year-old Ferndale, Wash., boy’s stunning recovery from the flesh-eating bacteria that chewed up his face and nearly killed him in 2006 has been officially deemed by the Vatican as a miracle attributable to Kateri Tekakwitha, a 17th-century American Indian woman who converted to Catholicism at a young age.
The pope on Monday signed a decree authenticating the miracle, clearing the way for Tekakwitha to be canonized as America’s first Roman Catholic indigenous saint.
“There is no doubt in me or my husband’s mind that a miracle definitely took place,” Jake’s mother, Elsa Finkbonner, told msnbc.com on Tuesday. “There were far too many things that could have and should have gone wrong with his illness. The doctors went through every avenue they could to save his life and he survived. It’s a miracle that all of the other things that could have gone wrong, didn’t.”
Fateful day
Jake's face-off with death started at age 5 on Feb. 11, 2006, when he fell and bumped his mouth against the base of a portable basketball hoop while playing basketball for the Boys & Girls Club. Lurking on the surface of that base was Strep A bacteria, which causes a tissue-destroying disease known as necrotizing fasciitis, a very rare condition commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria.
Within a couple of days Jake found himself in Children’s Hospital in Seattle, fighting for his life as the bacteria gnawed away incessantly at his head, neck and chest.
“They had taken him apart. There was nothing to see of Jake’s face except his nose and chin. Everything else on his head was completely covered in bandages,” Elsa Finkbonner recalled.
jakefinkbonner.com
Jake Finkbonner two months later with skin grafts.
Doctors told Elsa and her husband, Don Finkbonner, who works at a BP refinery in Ferndale, that the prognosis was grim.
“They opened up Jake and said, ‘If you are praying people, you need to pray. You need to get your family here because we are trying to save his life,’” Elsa said.
A priest and family friend, Fr. Tim Sauer, was called in to administer what he thought would be last rites.
“When I was called to the hospital it was basically to help the family prepare to say goodbye and let go. His probability of survival at that point was very slender,” Sauer told mnsbc.com.
The Finkbonners are devout Catholics and Don Finkbonner is also a Lummi Indian. At the urging of Sauer, they began praying for the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha to intercede on Jake’s behalf. Friends, neighbors, community members and strangers joined them.
After numerous surgeries to remove his damaged flesh, Jake suddenly and unexpectedly took a turn for the better on the ninth day of his hospitalization, Sauer recalls. That was the same day that a relic of Tekakwitha was brought to the hospital from the national office of the Tekakwitha Conference, a Catholic Native American religious organization, in Great Falls, Mont.
jakefinkbonner.com
Jake Finkbonner with some of his buddies in 2007. From left, Rick, Jason, Jake and Ben.
The relic was placed on a pillow next to Jake’s head. “On that day his vital signs began to make an unaccountable improvement,” Sauer says.
Vatican investigators would later interview hospital officials about Jake’s case, and the doctors said “they did not have any clear medical explanation for why his condition turned around on that day,” Sauer says.
About nine weeks after he was admitted to Children’s, Jake was cleared to go home.
Vatican investigates
After Jake’s recovery, Sauer sent a letter to the Seattle archbishop detailing the possible miracle.
The Vatican in Rome eventually sent a panel of investigators – including a doctor and a church lawyer – to Ferndale and Seattle to examine the claims. Community members were asked if they indeed did pray for the intercession of Tekakwitha. Doctors who attended to Jake were also interviewed.
The findings were forwarded to the Congregation for Causes of Saints, a committee of cardinals and bishops in Rome who review all the testimony that leads to the canonization of saints and presents the case to the pope.
On Monday, the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI formally recognized the miracle attributed to Tekakwitha – the last step on her way to canonization.
Tekakwitha, known as “the Lily of the Mohawks,” was born in 1656 in upstate New York to a Mohawk chief and an Algonquin mother. A smallpox epidemic killed both her parents and left her with partial blindness and a disfigured face. She converted to Catholicism after meeting several priests. Ostracized from her tribal community, Tekakwitha devoted herself to a life of deep prayer. She died in 1680 at age 24. According to the Catholic Church, witnesses said that within minutes of her death, the scars from smallpox completely vanished and her once-disfigured face suddenly shone with radiant beauty.
Pope John Paul II beatified Tekakwitha in 1980 – the first Native American to be declared “blessed” – a step below sainthood.
Usually, proof of two miracles must be attributed to someone who becomes a saint -- one before beatification, one after. But Pope John Paul II waived the first miracle requirement in order to beatify Tekakwitha in 1980, according to the Albany Times Union.
It’s not known yet when and where Tekakwitha’s canonization ceremony will be held. Canonizations are usually done in Rome but there have been cases where it has taken place elsewhere, Sauer said.
Whatever the case, Jake’s family will be invited and will attend. “Wherever it will be, we’ll be on our way,” Elsa Finkbonner says.
Sauer notes that it’s not mere coincidence the news comes on the week before Christmas. “It’s a statement of faith that God continues to work miracles in people’s lives today and do it through simple, ordinary people like Kateri Tekakwitha and Jake Finkbonner.”
Back on the court
As for Jake, “he’s doing fantastic,” his mother says. “He’s an excellent student, a typical, happy 11-year-old-boy who plays video games and punches his sister in the head and makes her cry.” He’s also playing basketball again on an AAU league.
Elsa Finkbonner
Jake Finkbonner in 2011
“He said, ‘I’m not afraid of that infection. I beat it the first time and I can beat it again,’” Elsa said.
As for the nonbelievers, Elsa is quick to explain that attributing Jake’s miracle survival to a future saint is in no way a discredit to the doctors who treated him.
“We know Jake would not be here if those doctors were not so fabulous,” she says.
But she also notes that the doctors themselves told the Vatican interviewers they don’t know how to account for the boy’s turn of fortune.
“They stated they did everything humanly possible and that the death rate for this disease is very high. They had also made comments as to they don’t know why he survived. They, too, have stated that, yeah, it is a miracle that he has survived.”
For more on Jake's story, visit his website, jakefinkbonner.com.
Leave a Comment:
Oh Boy! Amazing...lets give the credit where credit is due! The miracle was not from some dead indian lady...funny catholics! They have a saint for everything!....The miracle workers name is Jesus Christ...the same man that brought you salvation, love and faith! Read your bible...have a Merry CHRISTmas.
I agree with you HOWEVER, if they want to believe this women interceded for them, then ok, as long as they are happy.
It is believed that she interceded on his behalf, not that she performed a miracle. Catholics don't pray to saints or Mary, we ask them to pray for us. If asking for a person to intercede on your behalf leads to a miracle, then that person is thought to be with God and is therefore a saint. Saints are just people we think are definitely with God. God performs the miracle, she just asked for the help.
If you want to give credit where credit is due. THANK THE FREAKING DOCTORS.
There are too many unexplainable events in life to discredit miracles.
Why do you find it necessary to leap to the wildest, most illogical conclusion if you do not have a factual explanation for any given event? Just because the explanation is not currently known (in this case, is isn't known to you but may be to others in the medical field) does not mean the explanation is "magic", or the work of a god or demon.
Harry A. Mitchell III ,
Just because there is corruption in the Catholic Church doesn't mean that the core belief is not true. God is Great!! When there are humans involved there is a chance for corruption because only God is Perfect and not corrupt. All churches are at risk and all churches are sort of like a corporation. However, that doent mean there is no God. You should believe I do.
Miracle can be defined as
He was not supposed to make it, but he did. Hurray for what ever reason. Why fight about God or no God. Be happy for the kid, he's been through more than most of us. If someone gets saint hood in a religion you don't buy into what does it matter to you, you don't buy into it? I don't give thought to the schmoo why should you?
We are happy for the child. We simply watch in disgust while religion highjacks this event to make magical claims as public relations ads.
What does it matter if "they" try to take credit? It still happened. It takes two sides to make a war. As people, we should simply rejoice at the fact that one of our own survived when he was not supposed to. Maybe this kid believed that God saved him, why fault him that? Find hope where you will, build don't destroy.
Because those who believe in waiting for "miracles" don't support the real work of progress. It does matter whether mankind is passive or whether we advance. that's exactly building...not waiting for someone , something to work "miracles" while millions die.
"Just a normal little boy, punching his sister in the head and making her cry".....Awww
Sounds like that poor little girl could use some divine intervention.
When I cut myself as a child, my mother brought out the alcohol wipes and covered the cut with a band-aid. She said "don't pick at it you'll get an infection." Strep A and B is everywhere, wash you hands, treat your cuts, be careful with blood borne pathogens. The real miracle will be if this boy reaches 21 and is still religious. Does the Pope really have time for this kid or is the American Indian (Casino Owners) in his marketing plan.
At age 3 I was attacked by the POlia viris. At age 3yrs-8months I fell to the pnuemonia in both lungs. My family prayed for my recovery and at age 86 I am still here. Do I believe in mericals you better believe it.
I came down with a cold about a week ago. My grandmother said I'd be in her thoughts, and since she's devoutly Missourah Synod Lutheran, I assume she had me in her prayer that night. I was miraculously cured of my cold not too long ago. Clearly the prayer was the reason for my body successfully fighting the infection/virus, rather than antibodies and my biology?
Or you could be an insufferable, delusional person who is mistaken. Which is more likely to be true?
Too bad 2 years ago a 12 year old girl died because her christian family thought prayer would cure her totally treatable diabetes.
every sane christian knows that God invented doctors, those parents were not sane, that's the problem there, not faith in God.
Actually you religious types have attempted to stifle science and medicine for quite sometime. Please don't even attempt to take credit for medicine.
"that God invented doctors"
Sure, sure. It wasn't the years of study and practice at all.
If you believe this was a miracle, please send me $20, and I'll send you a genuine Father Leo's prayer cloth doused with Father Leo's genuine French holy water. Bless you.
LOL you sir might get rich in this country. Seems like 83% of people would actually do that. Funny how they apply reason to everything else except these wildly illogical concepts.
A god saves one boy and 1500 other innocent children die in Africa every DAY?
A god saves one boy and nearly half a million go missing/die in the US alone every YEAR?
A god allows the bacteria to ravage the child and saves him without at least healing his skin?
Well... It looks to me like it is exactly what happens when no god is involved... A certain percentage survives and DOCTORS not magic fought for that child's life too.
You are mixing apples with oranges, you sound like an angry person, you need to say a prayer and ask God to show you he is real.
Ah yes Linda, at it again I see. Claim apples and oranges, instead of addressing the very valid point Sgt.Neo711 brings up, then insult him and try to marginalize him as the bad guy ("you sound like angry person"), and end with the condescention of prayer instruction. What a good little zealot you are!
I just said a prayer and nothing happened. How long should I wait? Wheel of Fortune comes on in a few minutes and I never miss an episode of the Wheel....
Anything that isn't understood is deemed a miracle, luck, fate, the acult. In reality, there's no such things. Physiology and other sciences hold the answer. From his perch, the Pope continues to perpetuate the church of fantasy and pediphila. -Nice.
How about all the people who have been raped, tortured, and murdered around the world this last year? Were those miracles too? Something good happens to a few people and that means there's a Stone Age-thinking guy in the sky throwing around miracles? That kind of ridiculous nonsense makes me want, even less, to be a Catholic, aside from their taste for young boys and torturing nonbelievers.
those folks were lead by the devil.
Linda: that was supposed to be an answer? if you're the best your side has to offer, I suggest you find another spokesperson.
nnn
This is amazing funny, sad, and scary at the same time. So many people credit a fable creation based in the bronze age on a collection of fear, mysticism, and ignorance coupled to a few power hungry meglomaniacs that saw an opportunity with a few million "useful idiots".
This recovery was based solely on medical interventions. It's a statistical fact that the majority of these "religious christians" seek aggressive medical interventions than relying on their faith alone.
Lack of explanation is not license to insert one. I would love to see the criteria they used to test this as divine intervention.
Also, why is god not credited with creating the flesh eating bacteria, the boy coming in contact with it, and any other of thousands that succomb to it?
When it's good news, it's god. When it's bad news, it's random misfortune.
God only creates good things.
"God only creates good things".
Riiiiiiight....like the Devil you believe in, who, according to your own twisted, self-contradicting mythology, was created perfect by a perfect God, then somehow decided, IN HEAVEN (showing "free will"?) to commit the unforgivable sin of defying his creator, and was then cast down into the pit of Hell. So you can sin in the afterlife too, huh? And be kicked out of paradise into Hell FROM Heaven. So, what's the point of getting there if you can still be kicked out? That's not paradise! That's a vacation! Can you be "saved" from Hell with good behavior? You are such a superb example of how backwards and self-defeating a religious zealot is. Please, by all means, keep posting!
why are there never any mental health recoveries deemed as miracles?
I remember when medical science said smoking was good for you because it calmed you down. I remember when medical science said eat eggs, don't eat eggs, eat only the whites of eggs, eat man made eggs oh no lets go back to eating eggs. Science changes like I change my socks. If someone is a believer, let them alone. If someone doesn't believe let them alone. Believers call it a miracle, fine with me. Educated non believers say its luck, or fate, fine with me. Old hippies or new agers say it's a disturbance in the universe, fine with me. I say I can't wait till this life or journey is over to see what it is really going to be like.
"science changes like I change my socks"
And this is a bad thing how? It was once thought the earth was the center of the universe, then SCIENCE CHANGED, and we gained a little bit more knowledge. It was once thought that demons causes schizophrenia, then we learned that it is actually a disease. Science changed. It was once thought that the milky way was the only galaxy, then Hubble discovered it wasn't, and SCIENCE CHANGED.
Should I go on?
Science doesn't so much "change" as it advances, adjusts, and discovers. Also "medical science" NEVER said smoking was good for you, only a few doctors who took advertising cash from the tobacco industry. Let's not confuse the issue.
To B elieve, or not to B elive, that is the question.
You decide for yourself.
I found this to be an intersting story, am very happy for Jake and his family, and wish you all a very Merry Christ mas.
I have worked in healthcare since 1986, I believe in the power of faith. I have seen people that had no chance to survive - survive. I have seen people at the end of life hold on until a family member is contacted to say good bye. One should try understand the power of faith and love.
If you dont believe, then I feel sorry for you - because when the time in your life comes for drawing strengh from that faith you will be left alone and confused.
God gave us free will, it is up to us what we do with it.
and no, I dont belong to a church group or trying to convert you.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one who saved this young man's life, NOT some American Indian Woman who converted to Catholicism.
She didn't save him, she interceded. Catholics don't pray to saints or Mary, we ask for their prayers. If asking a deceased person for intercession leads to a miracle, then it is thought that that person is indeed with God. God performs the miracle, she just interceded, or prayed for him herself.
And NOT the doctors darnit! They didn't do ANYTHING. IT WAS ALL JESUS!
The problem with most people....non-believers and even some believers is that they have no idea how merciful and loving God really is. Yes, there is a God and he does miracles every day, but Satan is also just as real and DOES impact people. The problems on this Earth started a long time ago in the garden of Eden. Adam was given authority over the Garden, the animals in it, how to care for it..it was his. As soon as Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, i.e. willfully sinning against God...the impact on Earth was tremendous. Sin brought Venom, Pain, Death, Famine, Natural disasters, Diseases. Adam (Man) gave his authority on Earth away to Satan, the being that hates the Earth, everything and everyone that dwells on it. He wants nothing else but to see everything destroyed. God works wonders every day, childbirth is an example. But Satan uses what little or ALL of the authority that people GIVE him in their life to wreck their finances, their health, their minds, their kids. Its warfare out there people. Proverbs 18:21...Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Speak with life, not death. Be thankful for things you don't have yet. Don't say "I'm getting sick." Say "I will not get sick." Like the kid in the story, "I'm not afraid of this disease, I beat it once, Ill beat it again. Take authority in your own lives guys, don't let the world control you, you use your life to shape the world around you.
All these non believers are the same ones in all these protests like occupy wall street.They are nothing but a bunch of bums.I guess their God told them to do what they are doing.If they are waiting for their God to perform a miracle It will be a cold day in HELL.I guess their god performed miracles like crimnals and drug attics And tour god tells you to rape the women that are protesting with you.You should be very proud of your selves.You should all be ashame of your selves for saying the things you have said.This family believes it was a miracle that was brought on by what tey believe in and you try an disroy there happiness.May you all rot in Hell.You too there marine doc.I could just imagine what you would tell our troops that were pretty well suffering what you were telling them if you were at all there.God Bless Our Troops.And keep this marine doc away from them.I'm an x Navy man of 4yrs.Glad I never ran into you I would have deep 6 you and feed you to the fish.