By Joan Passarelli
Town Crier Correspondent
More than 380 people gathered for the eighth annual Los Altos Good Friday Prayer Breakfast last Friday at Rickey’s in Palo Alto. Organized annually by four Los Altos couples, the breakfast draws from all denominations in the south Peninsula to share a meal and hear inspiring speakers each Good Friday morning.
The first speakers were Dr. Joe and Julia Roberson. Joe is CEO and managing partner of the California Ear Institute at Stanford. He is one of just 40 surgeons nationwide qualified to place cochlear implants in patients to enable them to regain lost hearing.
Just as Roberson’s implants “wire” deaf people to hear again, Julia said, “Prayer wires us to hear the heartbeat of God.”
Joe and Julia, both 41, alternated at the podium to describe their joint prayer life. To illustrate their talk, they used a PowerPoint presentation with clips from an earlier “Good Morning America” presentation Roberson had given about a family of deaf people who regained their hearing due to Roberson’ s surgery.
The Robersons relived career and marriage decisions and the harrowing day when their 18-month-old daughter fell out of a third-story window.
“We were on our knees in the hospital counseling room,” Joe recalled. “It was hard for me to do that with my peers around, but we had to. I realized that only God holds life in his hands - not a surgeon, not anyone else.” Their daughter is now a healthy, happy 17 with two younger siblings.
Dorothy Garcia, the widow of Andy Garcia, one of the victims of United Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, followed the Robersons.
The audience in the packed ballroom was hushed as she talked of their 32 years of marriage, their three children (two of whom were in the audience), and the dreadful events of Sept. 11.
Through her grief, Garcia continued to pray for many things: for trust in God, for the ability to forgive the terrorists and for the strength to go on.
“I used to think I relied on the Lord,” she said. “Now I know I do.”
Garcia’s voice broke when she recounted the search by the FBI for her husband’s wedding ring. After months of requests and prayers, it was found.
An FBI agent traveled across the country with the ring in a gift-wrapped box to return it. She wears it on the middle finger of her right hand.
Garcia has appeared on television talk shows and carried the
Olympic torch on part of its journey through Pacific Grove.
Far from being bitter about her tragedy, Garcia said, “God has been so good to me. I have joy in the midst of sorrow.”
Dorothy Garcia with a new grandson that was born 8 days after 9/11 when her husband Andy died. The baby’s name: Andy.
Garcia was surprised when a phone call came in mid-October asking her to carry the Olympic Torch.
Joe and Julie Roberson believe their 18-month old daughter, who was injured in a three story fall, was healed through prayer. Joe is a surgeon at Stanford.
