God’s Got A Plan

For Rhonda and Gary Johnson of Salem, Indiana, some of their happiest days have been spent working side by side on their farm.

After long careers in education and pharmacy, retirement didn’t slow them down much. There was always hay to rake, cattle to feed, grandchildren to love, church ministries to serve in, and neighbors who needed a helping hand.

“We never looked at the clock,” Gary said about their love of working on the farm. “When it started getting dark, we’d say, ‘Maybe we ought to go home and eat something.’ We just loved being out there.”

When Rhonda began slowing down, neither of them recognized it for what it was.  The first signs were easy to explain away: They were getting older…Life was busy. After Gary suffered an injury from a fall, Rhonda simply assumed she was tired from carrying more of the workload while her husband recovered.

Then, during a trip to Scotland with friends, something felt different.

“I had a hard time keeping up,” Rhonda said. “I told one of our friends, ‘Believe it or not, it’s not him slowing down. It’s me.'”

Back home, the small changes continued. Rhonda needed more breaks while mowing. Tasks that had always come naturally required more effort. She found herself growing tired earlier in the day, something that had never happened before.

Routine blood work gave her doctor concerns. A bone marrow biopsy led to an appointment with an oncologist, and suddenly everything changed.

“Life turned on a dime,” Rhonda said.

She was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a type of blood cancer. Without treatment, doctors told Gary and Rhonda that she might not survive another year.

“It was overwhelming,” she said. “It’s like, wow. But we just decided right then, okay, dig in. We’ve got stuff we’ve got to do.”

The couple was inspired by their six-year-old granddaughter, Nora. Years earlier, she had been diagnosed with a rare neurological condition that requires constant care and support. The experience had taken their family on a journey that taught them to trust God through uncertainty. Now they found themselves needing to rely deeply on that same faith once again.

One night, as Gary worried about how he would manage caring for Rhonda, keeping up with the farm, and supporting their family, a familiar Scripture came to mind.

“‘Be still and know that I am God,'” Gary recalled. “That’s when I realized God was already there. He was going to be there through all of it.”

The couple committed themselves to the fight ahead. Chemotherapy quickly pushed Rhonda’s cancer into remission. Then came another challenge: finding a bone marrow donor. Doctors explained that finding a match could be difficult. Yet when the results came back, Rhonda was blessed with something remarkable: a perfectly matched donor from Great Britain.

“I thought, how does this happen?” Rhonda said. “I prayed and prayed, and then we came back with a perfectly matched donor.”

For Gary, watching those lifesaving stem cells enter his wife’s body became one of the most powerful moments of the entire journey.

“I always wondered what God looks like,” he said. “I don’t know what God looks like, but I have a picture of God. It’s that bag of stem cells from a perfectly matched donor being dropped into her body. God made that happen.”

To undergo transplant, the Johnsons traveled from their farm in southern Indiana to the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center in downtown Indianapolis, where they were required to spend weeks away from home before, during, and after Rhonda’s stem cell transplant.

Like many families facing transplant, Gary and Rhonda were unsure where they would stay during the long treatment process. They thought they would have to pay for a hotel or a short-term rental. But when a social worker referred them to Fair Haven, they were grateful.

“We were fortunate enough that God provided this,” Gary said.

For a couple accustomed to opening their own home to others, the gift of hospitality meant more than they expected.

“When we walked in, there were Scriptures on the walls,” Gary said. “We knew right away we were in the right place.”

Fair Haven provided something they desperately needed during a difficult season: a sense of normalcy. After being discharged from the hospital, Rhonda recovered at their apartment while doctors continued to monitor her closely. Fair Haven was a place where she and Gary could spend time with family and recharge. Sometimes friends even traveled to Indianapolis to help care for Rhonda so that Gary could spend some time at home tending to responsibilities on the farm.

“It gave him some sense of normalcy,” Rhonda said. “If we’d had to stay in the hospital the whole time, it would have been much tougher.”

Today, Rhonda is focused on recovery and looking ahead. She’s eager to spend time with her children and grandchildren again. Gary is looking forward to catching up on work around the farm. Both are grateful for the countless people who have walked alongside them- for the friends back home who helped on the farm, and for their church and loved ones who surrounded them with prayer.

“We’ve had friends step up from everywhere,” Gary said.

Their journey hasn’t followed the path they expected.

Rhonda remembers hearing an illustration about planning a dream trip to Italy only to discover that you’ve landed in Holland instead. At first, the destination feels wrong. But eventually, you begin to notice beauty you never expected to find.

For the Johnsons, this season has looked a lot like Holland. It wasn’t where they planned to go, but along the way they’ve experienced God’s faithfulness, the kindness of friends, the generosity of strangers, and the comfort of a place like Fair Haven.

And as they prepare to return home to their family and the farm they love, they do so with the same confidence that has carried them this far.

“God’s got a plan,” Rhonda said. “It’s not a half-hatched plan. It’s a perfect plan. You just don’t know what the ride is going to be.”