Stephanie's Bio

Stephanie is a wonderful, talented, and Christian young lady. On January 23,1994, Stephanie made her own profession of faith in Christ. She has been walking with the Lord ever since. To God be glory! Miss Stephanie Risi has been singing since age 5, playing the piano since age 6, and composing music since age 13. In 2004, Stephanie became a Licensed Minister with Kingsway Fellowship International, founded by Dr. D.L Browning and overseen by Dr. Bill Jenkins. She, now, plays the keyboard and sings alto on the praise and worship team at her church, Grace Christian Center. She is currently enrolled at Broward College where she is pursuing a degree in Music and/or Exceptional Student Education to become a music therapist or Speech Pathologist in her future. Not sure which field yet, but her passion is to do some type of work with people who have special needs. Stephanie serves as Children's church helper at her church, along with her fiance, Ken Stevens, and for special events and occasions, Stephanie and Ken serve in the Drama Ministry. Sometimes, Miss Stephanie even leads the congregation in praise and worship on her own by playing and singing and exhorting or encouraging the congregation to worship the Lord when opportunities arise. Stephanie often leads the congregation in singing her beautiful music during the worship services. She also sings solos and shares her testimony. Many times, Stephanie has been invited to minister at functions for different organizations, as well as many churches also. Since 2006, Stephanie has served as Assistant choir director to her mother, Patrice for the South Florida Teen Challenge Davie Women's home pastored by Rick and Donna Fernandez. She has been an inspiration to many, many people she comes in contact with. After having been through several hard, life-threatening circumstances, herself, her heart is really drawn to reaching other people by sharing her miraculous testimony, and beautiful music. Stephanie’s ultimate desire is to glorify the Lord and see others get saved, healed, and delivered.

This is My Story...

A Mother’s Love
My name is Stephanie Risi. I was born on October 18, 1984. I’ve faced intense physical and emotional difficulties all of my life. I was born with a severe craniofacial medical condition called Pfeiffer’s syndrome. This condition caused me to have bulging overexposed eyes which I treated with lubricating eye ointment several times a day. As a baby and young child I had severe breathing problems causing me to be a mouth breather because of very small nasal passages. My mother and grandmother would stay up all night taking turns holding me in certain positions so I could breathe while I slept. This was very stressful for them, but thank God they had each other for support.

I have had seven reconstructive surgeries on my face and skull. At four months old, I had a craniotomy, a very drastic surgery. Afterwards, I had a severe complication. Fluid was building up causing my head to swell larger and larger. The doctors told my parents that a shunt was needed in the back of my brain to drain the fluid from my head into my stomach. It would need to be lengthened as I grew and could possibly clog or cause infections, yet, without it I could have brain damage or seizures or even die.

The Father’s Love
My parents were very disappointed, but my dad, who is pastor of Grace Christian Center and a man of strong faith in God, decided to delay the shunt surgery. He wanted to hear from the Lord about whether or not I should have this. The complications could’ve been a life-long problem, so my dad decided to really fast and pray until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord had spoken to him. Every night he would go before the Lord and just cry out to God about this situation. On the 10th night, the Lord spoke to ave been so close ever since the day I was born. Her heart was filled with pain and grief over the situation. My mother is a strong lady in the Lord, but she expresses her concern for me emotionally.

Time For A Miracle
The next day, I had a doctor’s appointment. When the doctor used the tape measure to check my head, he was greatly surprised, “Oh, much better, it has gone down.” he said. My mother said, “Last night, the reading showed it was larger.” He said, “There must be something wrong with your tape measure,” which were the exact words my dad had said to my mother the night before. From then on, the healing was manifested, not only by my dad’s unwavering faith, but also as a miracle of God for all others to see. Even though it may take a long time before the end results, the Lord is still the same now as he was then; just pray fervently like my dad and family did and He will respond to your faith and heal you.

It’s Time to Hear
When I was 2 years old, I had a frontal advancement on my face. This was a surgery so that there would be less eye exposure. This was a tough surgery. I was a little child, so I can barely remember all the details, but I know it was a touch-and-go situation. Amazingly the Lord brought me through it. About that time, my parents realized I still could not speak. They were not aware that I suffered hearing loss due to this condition. My mother was concerned that I might have been mentally retarded or deaf. My dad tried to reassure her, that I was normal mentally and not deaf, but agreed to get my hearing checked. They took me to Boston Children’s Hospital. There, they let me sample one of their bone-conduction hearing aids to see if it helped me. The doctor said, “Now if she likes it, that means its helping her, if she doesn’t like it, it isn’t.” The doctor put it on me, and my eyes lit up when I realized I could hear like I never had before. My parents were so pleased. When I had to give it back I started crying. As soon as I returned home to Florida, Tony and Vivian Risi, my wonderful grandparents, bought me the hearing aid. For years, I have heard better with it. Sometimes it is still hard to hear in noisy places with a big group of people, but the Lord gives me the grace to handle people who get impatient with me. The hearing aid works great and has enabled me to sing and play the piano.

Saved In The Nick Of Time
At the age of ten, I went in for another serious frontal advancement surgery. I spent 11 days in critical care on a respirator with my tongue swollen and sticking out of my mouth like a big apple. I was pretty much coherent during that time and I would get frustrated because I could only communicate by pointing because of the tube down my throat. The doctors were afraid to remove the tube because they thought my tongue was too swollen to allow me to breathe on my own. Finally, they decided to remove it. My tongue went back in my mouth and started to block my airway. The doctor went into a sheer panic. My dad, who seems to know what helps me said, “Steph, stick out your tongue and breathe through the sides of your mouth!” He had to say it loudly because I did not have my hearing aid on during this. Finally, I was able to regain strength to breathe on my own. If it weren’t for my dad, I probably would not have forced myself to start breathing again. The recovery at home was pretty much an easy one with bearable pain, but I looked very swollen, and my eyes were constantly wet and runny.

Halos Can Hurt
When I was thirteen years old I had a Rigid External Distraction device surgically installed on my head. I was supposed to wear it for about 45-60 days. It was to gradually bring out my upper jaw. My dad would turn the screws that were anchored into the bones a half a millimeter in the day, and a half in the night. This went on for a lot longer than what was planned.

When the screw turning was finished, I wore the thing for a longer time to let the bones set in place. That was a very uncomfortable and emotionally draining experience for me, as well as the rest of my family. But I only experienced pain for a few weeks, and nothing kept me from enjoying my every-day life and my family.

More Tough Times
When I was seventeen years old, I had to have an Rigid External Distraction device put on again. That served two purposes: to bring out my upper jaw, and my mid-face. That time, my dad had to turn screws in my jaw and my mid-face. After that surgery, numerous big complications developed. Right before I went in, my dad had warned the doctor to take the breathing tube out right away because if it is in for long, further problems could develop, and he mentioned a couple of my past experiences to them. They agreed to do what he said. When I was laying there in the pre-op, I can remember feeling like the Lord would see me through, but I felt like I did not want to do this. I can remember thinking to myself, “We’re here to have this now, we can’t turn back.” I went in for the surgery. It took them an hour to get the tube down my throat, because I have small airways. After the surgery was over, the doctor came out and told my parents and family who were in the surgical waiting area that everything was over, and they said, “We have her on this paralysis medication with the breathing tube down here throat. She will be in this condition until Monday.” That was a Friday. When my mother heard that she became upset, because she had no idea that would happen. The last time I wore it when I was thirteen, I was in back home the next morning after surgery. The next night at about 5 in the morning, the doctor said I had a collapsed lung full of fluid from simply laying there so long unable to move. I was totally out of it for several days and nights in the critical care unit on the respirator.

About a week after surgery I was still in the unconscious condition on the respirator unable to move. That night, the doctor put me on a rolling bed so I wouldn’t develop bed sores from being completely still in bed. My grandmother was in there with me when I was on the bed, She noticed that a problem was starting to occur, and she went in to get my dad who was asleep in the meditation room. As it turned out, the moving bed was knocking the tube out of place. My dad said, “This is a problem, it is knocking the tube out.” The nurses insisted and just said, “No, daddy, we know what we’re doing.” But it did come out of place and I started to gasp for air. The doctors didn’t think they could get it back in place, but after about 20 minutes of fighting to get a breath, the doctors finally were able to get it back in. The next morning, a nurse said to my dad, “It was a miracle that we could get it back in, your daughter almost died.” If the doctors would have only listened to my dad, this incident could have been avoided. My dad has always been very knowledgeable about what is proper for my medical treatment. My family started praying real hard in the meditation room when they found out that this had happened. Due to this incident I lost the lower field of vision in my right eye and my right pinky finger went completely numb. That night my mother went home to really pray and fast for my healing from everything. My uncle took her home at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. In the car, she and my uncle Greg, who is also a strong faith-filled believer in the Lord, had a tape of me playing the piano and singing my original songs. She was crying and he was trying to encourage her that I would come out of all these problems. She spent three nights at home praying at the top of her lungs, in the Spirit, and in English. She also walked back and forth shouting God’s promises in the Scriptures, then she would go to the piano and start singing, playing, and praising the Lord, and crying all over the piano, then she would drop off to sleep for a few hours and wake up and do the whole entire process over again for a period of three days and nights.

He Giveth More Grace
On the third night, which was Saturday night, she felt an intense wave of grief come over her to the point where she was thinking, “Who can I call to process this pain inside of me with?” Then, she realized no one could heal her emotional pain, but the Lord, so, she went at praying and crying at the top of her lungs again. After that, she felt the intense depression turn into a free faith-filled feeling. The intense wave of crying and praying was almost like a total releasing of the whole situation to the Lord. She then decided that she was going to believe God for my miracle from that moment on, no matter what the doctor said, or what the situation looked like.

The next day, Sunday, my mother decided she was going to church to lead the praise and worship as usual. She went into the church, and picked out 11 or 12 songs for praise and worship and started singing at the top of her lungs. We normally do 5 or 6 songs. She sang and put my name in every song she could get it in. People said that they never heard her sing so loud and going at it like that. She had in her mind that she was getting somewhere in the Lord and she didn’t care who was or who was not joining her. After all that, she went back to the hospital. I was still in the same condition as when she left but she did not sense the heaviness she had. She sensed a change in the atmosphere for the good. She felt like she was strong enough to be there and handle whatever she needed to. The next day, they took the tube out. When they were ready to, my dad said, “Take her off all of the medications and drugs so she can be coherent to breathe on her own.” They took me off almost everything, but I was still half-way drugged. When they started to extubate me, I started to gasp for air again. My dad was yelling, “Come on Steph, breathe, breathe!” I can remember feeling somewhat like “I would like to get a breath but it just ain’t happening.” He noticed a giving-up look in my eye like I was just not going to try to breathe anymore. My oxygen level started to get dangerously low. My dad still kept on telling me to breathe and keep trying. Finally, I was able to take a breath, and my oxygen level went back to normal. Later, I woke up completely from all of the stuff they had me on during the doctor’s rounds when the parents and family have to step out. I did not see any familiar faces there. I started to jump out of the bed because I was not coherent enough yet to realize what was happening to me. The doctor had to calm me and make me get back in the bed. (As far as I can remember, they weren’t very nice or gentle while putting me back in the bed.) I spent one more day after that in critical care, but I was coherent and talking to my family. The next day I went to a private room. That was much better. I stayed in the private room that night and the next night. It was so hard for me to sleep at night because of the metal device on my face and head, and because of the tremendous eye and facial pain. Throughout the day, I would drop off to sleep out of pure exhaustion. Two weeks from the surgery date, I went home. I was in the hospital a total of 14 nights, 11 of those nights I was on heavy drugs and out of it in the critical care unit.

It Ain’t Over Yet
When we got home we thought, “Oh, good, now we can just recover at home and be comfortable.” As it turned out, it was the two months from Hell. I could barely see from severe swelling and I had to be led around by a person on each side of me for several weeks. One day, I asked my mother, “Is this the end of my vision?” When my mother heard that, she would cry out, “No! No! It’s coming back!” The pain was unbearable in my eyes and face, and I would cry out in agony day and night for about six weeks straight. My parents kept on giving me pain killers at home that kept me pretty much sleepy all the time, but as soon as it would wear off, I would cry out for more. We repeated this process until we started to get afraid that I was becoming dependent on the medication. Finally, one day, when my parents were ready to put me back in the hospital, I said I did not want to take the medicine any more and was going to stick with medicine that was not as strong but relieved the pain. It worked out as well as it could. I was very demanding and mean while I was on the strong medication. I got back to my normal personality when I got off of the strong pain killer.

On the 2nd morning we were home, my dad noticed that our air conditioning went out in our house from a severe lightning storm. My parents and I went to my grandparents’ house to live while the air was being fixed. For ten days we lived with my grandparents. I constantly had people by my side every minute of the day and night and lots of people from our church frequently called me and came by to see me. I was in terrible pain in my face and my eyes. I would scream and cry for hours and hours, day and night, for about 6 weeks straight. One morning, the minute I woke up at my grandparents house, I felt an unbearable wave of pain and burning in my eyes. I started jumping around in the bed screaming from intense pain. My uncle was the first one to run in there to see what was happening. Soon after, my dad came in and put eye ointment in my eyes. I still could barely see anything from severe swelling and thick eye ointment. When my parents would put eye ointment in I would feel relief for a second and then I would cry out for more ointment because the intense burning would come back. This lasted for about over a month.

Finally, the air was fixed at my house, and we moved back home. Every day, my wonderful grandma Mary would come by and take care of me for about 8 or 10 hours and make us a delicious dinner each night.

I could not hardly eat anything because we were afraid we would mess up the bones if I chewed. We had to just let the bones in my face heal. My grandmother would have to make soft things for me, while everyone else could have the rest of the meal. That made me very angry. I wanted to chew and eat whatever I wanted. My grandmother always made sure we were doing what we needed to do and what the doctor wanted me to. She didn’t mind one bit having to make things a certain way so I could chew it. What a wonderful grandmother she is! We would have Luis and Neva Herrera, from our church, over one night a week. I was close to them and found their presence a great comfort to me during that intense time of my life. They prayed for me and showed real concern for my family and me during that time. They were there whenever we needed them, night or day. I praise the Lord for that.

A Visible Miracle
One morning I noticed I had a big sore in my mouth. I just thought, “Oh well, I just have a cold sore because I am severely stressed out from all that was continuously going on with me.” I was getting to be at the end of my rope. That day I went to my follow-up appointment with my surgeon to see how I was healing.

He checked the alignment of my jaw to see if my dad could stop turning the screws and just let the bones set in place. When he opened my mouth, I screamed from severe pain. He just let it go and didn’t bother to keep looking. He just said, “It looks good, and you can stop turning the screws.” We went home after that.

That night, my dad looked in my mouth to see what the sore was. As it turned out, it was not a cold sore, it was a sore from my teeth pointing straight out and cutting into my lip. My dad called my mother over to show her. My mother started praying and crying loudly again. She was pacing the floor quoting Scriptures and praying at the top of her lungs while my dad was checking the inside of my mouth. My dad called the doctor, it was late at night, so my dad made an emergency call to the doctor. The doctor returned the call and said, “Come to the hospital emergency room and we’ll look at her mouth and see what we can do.” We all went to sleep after my mother prayed and cried and shouted for hours interceding for my divine healing.

The next morning, we went to the hospital and saw the doctor. He said, “We are going to have to numb her mouth so I can really look in it and see what is happening.” My family and I agreed to it. When the doctor pushed the needle through the sore spot in my mouth, I totally lost it. I was screaming and crying because it hurt really bad. My mother ran outside to the waiting room crying to her parents when she saw me like that. My grandmother came in and started crying when she saw how much I was suffering from terrible pain in my mouth. I asked for my grandpa Eddie to come in, who is also a strong believer in the Lord, and who was with me all the way praying for me. He came in, and I started crying and saying, “Grandpa! It really hurts!” He just tried to console me to the best of his ability, but there wasn’t much anyone could do to ease the constant pain I was experiencing. The doctor said, “Well, there is not much I can do to fix the problem. Go to your orthodontist and see what he says.” We went there right after we left the hospital. When we got to the dentist, he just said. “The teeth are in the wrong position. We can remove the wires going into the jaw, but we will have to do more procedures in the future to get the teeth back in their proper position; this process could take years.” That happened on a Saturday.

On Monday, I went back to the doctor that I saw 2 days before in the hospital. He had to give me the numbing shot again to remove the wires which went through my upper lip and connected to my jaw. Again I screamed and cried. This time it was only my dad and grandmother with me. My mother, who is the principal of the school I go to, had to meet with parents that day and could not be there. After I calmed down, the doctor was able to get the wires out of my jaw. Before our very eyes, we saw the teeth, within a matter of seconds, move back into the proper position and set. This was another miracle of God that happened to me. What a relief it was to have two of my wires off.

Your Old Men Shall Dream Dreams
I still dealt with terrible pain in my eyes. The eye ointment would only help for a second. This went on for another few long weeks. The pain was unbearable. I remember wishing I would have died. One night, my dad had a dream. In the dream, he saw flames. He would pour water on it, it would go out for a second, but then, it would start up again. This process happened several times. My dad then heard someone say, “It is an attack of the devil, just command the fire to be put out.” So, my dad said, “In the name of Jesus, I command this fire to stop!” Instantly the fire stopped. That was on a Saturday night.

The next day was church, I was sitting with some friends of mine who went to the church. My dad, from the pulpit, told about the dream the night before, and said to me, “Steph, I’m going to command the fire to be put out over your eyes.” My dad prayed and commanded the fire to stop. Right when my dad prayed that, I felt a sense of peace come over my face and eyes. I never had a burning episode after that. I was able to wear the device the rest of the time in a lot less pain, I started to sleep through the whole night every night. The days were a lot easier to get through. It was still not pleasant, but it was more manageable. Praise the Lord for that.

The Aftermath
After two months of wearing that device I went back to the hospital to get the device taken off. It was not a big surgery. They only put me to sleep half-way to avoid needing a breathing tube, and I was coherent enough to talk during the procedure. The surgeon said to me, “Now we play music while we work on our patients, what music would you like to hear?” I said to them, “Do you have any Christian music?” they just kind of chuckled when I said that. The hardest thing about the removal of the device was when he removed the bolts anchored into my skull. When he was unscrewing them, I kept saying, “No leaking holes?’ and he said, “No leaking holes.” I said, “PRAISE THE LORD!” (The doctors and nurses did not know really how to respond when I said that, but I just said it anyway.) I did not have an episode with cranio-spinal fluid drainage this time. The Lord must have known that I could not take anything else. Before I went in to surgery, my mother cried again. I cried a lot while I was laying there waiting to go in, because I felt like I had endured so much, and that I was emotionally spent. Four hours later, I was discharged. My parents and I went home. Because my parents had not slept right for two months due to the constant rough times, they took a nap and went totally out. They had not slept well in so long. But they could knowing that everything was really over. I felt so relieved, that I fell asleep when I was sitting with my grandmother in the living room. Up to a year later I still suffered emotionally from all I had to deal with. My parents would get into arguments easily, and we would all have a breakdown as a family because we were emotionally spent. I would have crying spells night or day for months. For several weeks, I suffered from terrible nightmare episodes, with feelings of uncontrollable spinning and like I had no control, and could not move. I would scream my head off for about a half-a-minute until I regained control again. During those episodes I felt like it would literally kill me. Afterwards, I would sense a severe weight of depression come over me, and I would cry uncontrollably even after I pulled myself together. My parents would just reassure me, when I would have that, and I would gradually come back to my senses. That happened a few nights for several weeks.

Brighter Days and New Friends
About two days before I got the device removed, I received a beautiful letter from one of the students in my class, a young man named Gabriel. Every week, my teacher, Mr. Mathai, gives us a creative writing assignment. That day, he told everyone to write an encouraging letter to me. I was still recovering at home and could not go to school yet. I got many nice letters from all the kids. When I was realizing that it was getting closer to the time for me to try to go back to school, I felt afraid of having another bad year socially. Due to my medical condition and hearing loss, I have been slower than most young people when it comes to relating to others my own age. I have experienced numerous painful rejections in the previous school years, to the point where I would cry many nights and days and would not want to go on anymore because of severe loneliness. This year, I was afraid to go back to school and face more rejections, especially after having so much emotional, physical, and mental trauma from the surgery. I read the letters from the students in my class, and felt very encouraged by all of them. I started to think that maybe this year would not be so bad. A young lady, Rebecca, who has been a close friend of mine for almost three years now, wrote a beautiful letter to me encouraging me and giving me some encouraging Scriptures. She often called me, and my family kept her posted on my progress. This young man, who I started to mention, did not even know me, but he wrote me a note that almost put me in tears. I had been wanting a male friend for years, especially one that is a Christian and into music, like I am. This young man plays the piano by ear, and sings a little, too. He wrote a beautiful letter of encouragement to me, and even quoted Psalm 91, which had been my encouraging Scripture for every surgery I had. He expressed a true interest in getting to know me when I got back to school. He said, maybe we could do music together during the school year. He is a wonderful Christian young man who loves the Lord. He turned out to be the male friend I had been longing for. We have had times where we had to work out social issues, but ultimately, he has been a great comfort and support. He would encourage me and pray over me when I was dealing with my post-traumatic stress or even stress about things that he and I would go through. He gave me a few piano lessons, and counseled me afterwards for a period of 6 months every Thursday after school for an hour, there were times where we would go three hours of talking and enjoying each other after having the lesson.

I still have occasional days of feelings like “Why did this happen?” I still have times of crying from loneliness and frustration from the surgery and some of the issues that he and I deal with. Gabriel has helped me to see a lot about myself that I never realized when I was younger. I have grown as a person and in my relationship with the Lord, as a result of certain ways he has helped me. When I had just been having many terrifying nights of intense nightmare episodes, I called him, and we talked one night, and I cried when I shared some of the feelings I was having about the surgery. He did not know what to think, but he was very understanding and caring about my feelings and what I had been going through. Later on, I realized that was almost like a release for me, because ever since I broke down uninhibitedly, I started to get better emotionally, and I have not had another traumatic experience in the night and I have been sleeping peacefully all night ever since. I thank the Lord for his prayers and concern for me even when he did not know what to say or do about my intense pain. We have also done songs together when he played the piano and I sang with him for school events that my mother put on for the parents and families of the students. I really enjoy doing that. I am also a part of his youth group on Wednesday nights at Providence Baptist Church where he is the piano player and in charge of a big part of the music program for the adult and youth services. He is a very gifted, and talented, young man with strong faith in the Lord.

Rebecca, on the other hand, has been one that shares many of the same emotions. We think and feel a lot of the same things and we often talk about it to one another. She and I attended school together for two years until she graduated. I am also very encouraged by her example as a young lady who has endured a lot of her own issues but still loves the Lord and is very devoted to Him and her family. She has always been there praying and caring about me in every area of my life. She came into my life when I felt like I had tried with so many people to make friends and either they would move away or not want to return my friendship. I praise the Lord for her.

This Is My Song
Now that the surgery part of my life is over I am planning to further my education by studying church music, with an emphasis on being a praise and worship leader. I may take some courses in English and become an English teacher and writer. I like singing and songwriting, and I have studied and played the piano in previous years before the terrible incident happened after the surgery which affected my vision and my pinky finger. The reason I want to possibly pursue being a praise and worship leader, is because I always have had a love for worshipping the Lord and exhorting others with the gift of music the Lord has blessed me with. I also like to write poems about my love for the Lord and for people I know, and my family members, and even about some of the emotional pain I still deal with. I am also interested in a career in writing. I still am deciding about what I would like to do. Right now, I just want to keep living for the Lord by enjoying my family, my church, and my friendships. I almost lost my life several times, but it only makes me realize how important it is to stay close to the Lord and to trust in Him for everything in life. He will reward you if you diligently seek Him and never give up.