(Attached photo shows from left to right: Sekyen (donor/sister), Taavi (Kerrie's son), Kerrie, and Christiana)
Summary
+ A 21 year old Nigerian woman, Kyermun (Kerrie), is diagnosed with Sickle Cell Disease.
+ Kerrie’s life is eventually totally taken over by her fight with SCD. Hopes for a brighter future are dashed.
+ With no job, Kerrie struggles greatly while trying to raise a young son. Financial security is impossible.
+ Kerrie’s mother, Christiana, returns to the USA to provide care for her and a special needs sister, also living in the USA. The family is reunited in Minnesota.
+ There are limited financial resources for the entire family. No help from Nigeria is forthcoming nor expected.
+ Kerrie is accepted into a NIH trial that holds the promise of a cure for SCD. Kerrie’s sister is identified as a near-perfect match for a bone marrow transplant. Limited financial resources threaten this opportunity.
+ As a foreign national (with legal status) and struggling to keep her family together, Christiana is dependent on limited financial assistance from private church sources.
+ My name is Greg and I am acting as an advocate for and supporter of the family at the center of this story. With nowhere to turn, the family has decided to open a campaign with GiveSendGo.com.
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Coming (Back) to America
Several years ago, I was introduced to a vibrant, hopeful young woman that had recently given birth to a beautiful baby boy. Her name is Kyermun (Kerrie) and I was immediately drawn to her joyful, Spirit-filled outlook on life. At the time, Kerrie was a customer of mine as I owned a small auto repair business. During this time, Kerrie had also established a relationship with a couple from my church – Mark and Sarah. (More about them to follow). After a couple years, I lost track of Kerrie, as life took her in new directions.
Fast forward to the fall of 2025.
Kerrie’s mother, Christiana, had reached out to Mark and Sarah and shared she was returning to the USA from Africa. As she planned to re-acclimate to life in the States, she needed all the support she could garner for the huge responsibilities before her. Mark and Sarah introduced her to the Pastor of Care at our local Covenant church who brought her need before the Deacon’s Committee.
As I serve on the Deacon's Committee, I learned of Christiana’s return to the USA. The reason for her return was to be the primary caregiver for her two daughters: one with cognitive disabilities and the other suffering from complications from worsening Sickle Cell Disease (SCD). I was surprised to learn that the daughter with SCD was Kerrie, the young woman I knew from nearly ten years before.
As I learned more about Christiana's need and as firm believers in God's "divine appointments", my wife and I pledged to take Christiana and her family into our care as she had very limited resources to begin caring for Kerrie, her son, and Kerrie’s sister.
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Kerrie’s Story: A Life Upended
Kerrie was born in 1992 in Jos, Nigeria. She graduated from Hillcrest Christian School in Jos. After graduating high school, she immigrated to the USA in 2011 to pursue her post-secondary education at Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, Iowa. Kerrie completed two years at Dordt then another 1.5 years at Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City, Iowa. It is her aspiration to get a bachelor's and master’s degree in nursing. One day, she hopes to be a Nurse Practitioner.
All of her plans were upended in the spring/summer of 2013.
Her symptoms were beginning to be unavoidable. The chronic, generalized pain. The severe nausea and fever. The lethargy that left her bedridden. As she had family members back in Nigeria with similar symptoms who had been diagnosed with SCD, Kerrie sought medical attention. Her worst fears were confirmed: Sickle Cell Disease.
This began a long season of times in and out of hospitals. Seasons with relatively manageable symptoms. Many times not. Medications were prescribed with mixed results. It seemed that no matter what was tried, the disease was gaining the upper hand. SCD was slowly taking over Kerrie’s promising life. Gone were the goals of nursing. Gone were the hopes of financial stability and independence. She could barely care for herself and her young son. SCD was now firmly in control of her every day.
During this season, Kerrie learned from two family acquaintances who are doctors, of a trailblazing trial being conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) where bone marrow transplants from very carefully screened sibling-donors, were forcing SCD back into a “carrier” state. In this condition, SCD is no longer an active disease - they are essentially cured.
Kerrie applied for the trial and was accepted due to the debilitating impact the disease had had on her life. She was no longer able to work and care for her son and her rapidly declining quality of life were the determining factors. As for a donor? Her siblings were tested and her sister in the States was found to be a near perfect match.
However, shifting priorities at the Agency level forced all applicants back into the prospect pool. Kerrie had to start over. She re-applied and was re-accepted but not without significant delay. It was during this time that Kerrie’s mother came to Minnesota to provide direct care for her and her now donor/sister.
The winter of 2025 proved to be pivotal. It was during this time that the disease took a deadly turn.
Shortly after Christmas, blood clotting attributed to the SCD began causing blinding headaches. Then one late afternoon, while picking her son up from school, a headache struck that left her pseudo-paralyzed. Stroke. An air ambulance ride to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota revealed Kerrie had developed a cluster of brain aneurysms. With skilled care, the threat posed by the aneurysms was reduced to a manageable level - just in time to be scheduled for a trip to Bethesda Maryland in late July 2026 to begin the long-awaited NIH trial.
All of this was happening while Kerrie had no means of support. Her family was totally unprepared for the challenges facing them and with an unstable economy back home, had nothing to fall back on. If not for the generous support of a church family, she wouldn’t have gotten this far. This support provided housing, food, and paid for utilities. A car was returned to safe operating condition and given to the family.
But this support is finite and it appears neither Kerrie nor her mother will be in a position to assume their own financial support until spring of 2027 when Kerrie’s trial will be complete and she can return to Minnesota to restore her and her son’s life.
This is where GiveSendGo comes in.
We are establishing this campaign with a fundraising goal of $50,000 USD. The funds will be used to provide for Kerrie, her son, her mother, and her sister as Kerrie participates in the NIH program. It will also help get her established when she is no longer plagued by SCD, and she can resume her studies, apply for work and be a productive member of society once again.
Kerrie’s promising life has been upended by Sickle Cell Disease. Please consider supporting her generously as she makes this long trek, knowing Christian brothers and sisters are behind her. She is most hopeful that with your help, the challenges posed by this crippling disease will FINALLY be in her rear-view mirror.
