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Watch Steve and Dawn's story here.

Pastor Steve Mathews doesn't remember the last three weeks of December 2025. The last thing he does remember is a mask being lowered over his face, early one cool December morning. He didn't open his eyes again until the end of December, to a dark hospital room, a television counting down to the New Year's Eve ball drop. Only now, Steve's arm and both his feet were gone. 

Steve pastors United Baptist Church in Valdese, North Carolina, and serves as Chaplain for the North Carolina Wing of Civil Air Patrol. He and his wife, Dawn, have spent thirty years in ministry together, giving sacrificially of their time, home, and gifts, loved deeply by the community they've served.
 

Not a Virus 

It started one ordinary Saturday night, when Steve and Dawn returned home from a date and Steve began to feel sick. He chalked it up to a stomach bug and agreed to see a doctor in the morning.

Only, by morning, Steve was so confused and disoriented he couldn’t get to the car. Dawn immediately called an ambulance. Paramedics said Steve’s blood pressure had dropped so low they couldn't risk the drive to a larger hospital further away. They had to take him to the closest one.

"If we hit lights and sirens, don't follow us fast," the ambulance crew told Dawn. "We have to get there quickly. Just drive and come to the emergency room, and they'll take you back to him."

Dawn followed. Alone. Not knowing whether her husband was alive or dead.
 

Necrotizing Fasciitis

At the hospital, doctors informed Dawn that Steve didn’t have a stomach bug at all, but rather the onset of septic shock. Then they told her his diagnosis, one she'd only heard of on TV: necrotizing fasciitis. Flesh-eating bacteria. 

Steve was admitted on December 7th and taken straight into emergency surgery. What was supposed to be a two-hour procedure stretched into five. Surgeons removed 70 percent of the skin and fascia from his arm, trying to stay ahead of an infection that kept spreading.

The next day, they went back in, removing more skin from his hand and palm. By the third day, doctors told Dawn it still wasn't enough. Steve's arm would have to be amputated above the elbow.

Doctors said they were a little shocked by how quickly Dawn signed the consent forms. Most family members, they told her, don't want to be the one to decide to take a loved one's limbs.

"I don't care if you get my husband back in bits and pieces," she told them. "I just want him back."
 

A Shower, a Prayer, and a Promise

On the second night, alone, Dawn stood in the shower and watched the water go down the drain. She prayed, recalling how God had called her and Steve into ministry, onto the mission field, into a life poured out for others. She made him a promise: if Steve didn't make it, she'd sell everything they owned and go wherever God asked her to go next.

"It was like I could feel God picking me up under my arms," she said, "carrying me down the hall at the hospital, walking with me, sitting next to me."

The blood pressure medication keeping Steve alive was saving his heart, but starving his extremities. In the days that followed, his feet began to turn black, and so did his fingers. Both feet were removed in emergency amputations just before the new year.

Steve woke for the first time three weeks after his first surgery, on New Year's Eve. A nurse he'd never met, someone he couldn't even see in the dark, came in and wrapped her arms around his head and prayed over him.

"That's when the peace of God began to work in my heart," he said.
 

The Mission Changes

Dawn had been set to leave for a mission trip to Kenya the Monday after Steve was admitted. That trip never happened. Instead, her teammates showed up at the hospital. 

"We were going to be in Kenya with you," they told her, "but now the mission's changed. It's about Steve."

Word spread fast through the rest of Steve and Dawn's church, their mission team, and decades of friendships built across a 30-year ministry. The waiting room filled up. 

A friend then suggested she start a GiveSendGo fundraiser. "A lot of Christians use it," her friend told her. "Pastors use it for mission trips. Families use it to adopt children." Dawn agreed, and her friend Britney set it up on her behalf.

A day and a half later, GiveSendGo's Hope Team Manager, Rene, called Dawn at the exact moment Steve was being wheeled back into surgery to have his arm amputated.

"Can I pray for you?" Rene asked her.

"They're about to amputate my husband's arm," Dawn told him. Rene prayed with her right there, over the phone, surrounded by friends in the ICU waiting room. When she hung up, someone asked who'd called.

"That was GiveSendGo," Dawn said. "They just called to pray for me."

From there, their story kept spreading and many others in their life reached out to pray. Some even shared their own testimonies of how God was working in their families. "To watch that unfold and to watch God minister to all of us," Dawn said, "It was incredible. I've never seen anything like it in my whole 30-year ministry."

"A lot of that built up while I was unconscious,” Steve said. “So when I became aware of it, it was already a large number of people who were praying." 

Even people who'd never met him, with no reason to know Steve’s name, had given to his fundraiser so he could get back to preaching the gospel. "A lot of them were small gifts," he said, "but they add up."
 

A Long Road, Told in Small Steps 

What followed was months of surgeries, ICU days, and slow, hard-won progress. Doctors were planning below-the-knee amputations on both of Steve's legs, once his body was strong enough to survive them. He lost some of his fingertips too. By March, he was in a rehabilitation center, learning to stand on his first set of prosthetic legs and adjusting to a prosthetic arm he couldn't yet use while his residual limb continued to heal. 

On April 1st, Steve rang the bell and walked out of rehab on his new legs.

"I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord," he said, quoting Psalm 118:17.

But he was still facing a long list of needs: a better prosthetic arm, a vehicle he could safely drive, ongoing therapy, and specialized care that insurance wouldn't fully cover.
 

Outrageous Generosity

On May 16th, 2026, Steve and Dawn's church family and community threw them a welcome-home celebration in Ferguson, North Carolina. GiveSendGo was there too, and through its Outrageous Generosity initiative, presented the Mathews family with a check for $12,500.

"We were blown away," Dawn wrote afterward. "Thank you so much for this outrageous blessing."

GiveSendGo’s Outrageous Generosity initiative is their way of blessing people and families in unexpected need. (Read about another Outrageous Generosity moment here when GiveSendGo bought and gave away a car to a family in need.)

"I want to say thank you to the Hope Team, that calls people day after day with different kinds of trials going on," Steve said. "Thank you for being a part of GiveSendGo." 

As of this writing, Steve and Dawn's fundraiser has raised more than $80,000 from givers in their community and around the world.
 

Everything Made New

Looking back, Dawn believes everything they went through was worth it, for where they are now.

"When Steve woke up, I listened to a song, and it talked about how God is making everything new," she said. "I thought, that is our life. God was making everything new in us. He made Steve new... And when God makes all things new, he makes them better. He makes them beautiful."

“If I had to go back to the 6th of December and God asked me, ‘Do you want to go through this, or do you not?,’” she said. “I think if I could see the outcome where we're at today, I would still say yes. I can't imagine not going through this to see the power and the presence of God in the way that we've seen him.”

Steve agrees. "I should have died," he said. "The doctor didn't think I would live. And thousands and thousands of people prayed for me. And I believe God answers prayer. He's a God who's listening. He wants us to pray for each other. And I believe that I am the beneficiary of thousands of prayers, and God answered those."

Steve doesn't describe his story as one of loss. He describes it as a life he handed over a long time ago.

"Over 30 years ago, I gave my whole life to Christ," he said. "If he's my Lord, then it's all his. And if he wants an arm and two legs and some fingertips for his glory... if that magnifies his gospel, I would freely give that."
 

A Life Already Given

Steve’s back in his pulpit now, back to preaching, teaching, and writing. To anyone walking through something they can't yet see the other side of, he offers this: "If you rely on Christ and you trust him, he'll meet you there and he will walk you through it." 

What began with a diagnosis nobody saw coming didn't end there. A friend started a fundraiser, and hundreds of family, friends, and strangers decided to walk with Steve and Dawn through the hardest season of their lives.

That's the story behind every GiveSendGo fundraiser.

If you're facing something like this right now, or you know someone who is, you don't have to carry it alone. Start a fundraiser for yourself, or for someone you love, and let your loved ones show up for you, just as Steve and Dawn's community did for them. 

Watch Steve and Dawn's full story here, and see the moment GiveSendGo surprised them with a $12,500 check through their Outrageous Generosity initiative, at their welcome home celebration here.

You can also pray for Steve’s continued recovery along with his remaining needs, including prosthetics, home modifications, and a vehicle Steve can safely drive, at givesendgo.com/stevemathews.