Hume Alum, Jenna Silva, went to be with the Lord on September 20, 2024. This incredible woman touched many lives. Her joy was absolutely infectious and she could light up a room. She greatly impacted the ministry of Hume and loved the Lord deeply. Jenna wrote this article that was featured in the Hume 2023 Spring Magazine. We wanted to rerun it as a tribute to her beautiful life.
Jenna writes:
God’s Faithfulness…Never have I been more grateful for or relied so fully on the faithfulness of God than right now as I battle stage IV colon cancer. April 2021- in a hospital bed, fighting my way through the brutal recovery of the lifesaving emergency surgery after my colon perforated and sent me into sepsis- I hear the stunning cancer prognosis from the first of now about a dozen Oncologists saying there is no cure and all that modern medicine can do is simply “buy me as much time as possible.” Gut punch. A whole lot flashes through your mind in such a moment. In the blink of an eye, the mind looks back scanning over decades of life, memories, and faces of loved ones. And just as fast, grieves the flashes of all your future hopes, dreams and memories you’ll never have if this is true. At 42 years old, I was stunned.
But Almighty God’s consistent, unwavering faithfulness through the ages tells me not only will He be with me as He has promised, but that time and time again He has proven who He is and that there is always hope in the midst of our deepest valleys and darkest storms. For God’s Faithfulness is both who He is and what He does! The miracle we so desperately need is found in the very person God is- Yahweh, The I AM. So the same God who was faithful to Abraham, will be faithful to me. The same God who never once failed providing manna from the heavens for Israel, will never fail to provide for me. The same God with boundless power and might to calm the winds and waves, part the Red Sea, bring forth water from stone, heal the sick, raise Christ from the dead – HE – who now enters into my current circumstance, is that same God and therefore there is nothing He cannot do! No impossible He can’t make possible. This is the great gift of God’s faithfulness to us!
Up at Hume, there is a sign in Ponderosa that says “THE LORD IS GOOD.” I first saw it in 1997 when I arrived for my first summer on staff. I love it because it serves not only as a declaration that the Lord Himself is good but is also a testimony for the innumerable ways He has been good to the ministry of Hume Christian Camps over all the years. In other words- His great faithfulness to Hume! From the day I received the cancer prognosis until now, I feel the Lord has been whispering over and over again “Just trust me.” And it is because of His complete faithfulness, that I know that I can…AND that I know there is hope! Even when there isn’t a single oncologist who says there is, I know there is! He is the God of miracles. His power is limitless and His promises unfailing. And just as He continues to be so good and so faithful to Hume, the encouragement here is that He will continue to be that to us as well!
Jenna Silva
Alumni ’97-‘06