New Lungs for Jesse

Jesse's journey for bilateral (double) lung transplant for cystic fibrosis

Missed the Live Stream? It’s now online.

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The live stream of the service was recorded. Over on the Celebration and Guest Book page (which formerly housed the live stream) there is a full recording of the service. Be sure to sign the guestbook if you haven’t already.

In case you want to watch just the tributes portion of the service, I’ve made those three videos into their own set. Here they are, in the order they were delivered:

Ben Meredith’s Tribute

Jordan Code’s Tribute

Andrew Reilly’s Tribute

Celebrating Jesse’s Life

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Visitation

Blount & Curry Funeral Home
3207 W Bearss Ave
Tampa,Fl 33618

Sunday, July 9 from 5-7 pm

Funeral Service

Idlewild Baptist Church
18333 Exciting Idlewild Blvd
Lutz,FL 33548

Monday, July 10 at 11:00 am Eastern Daylight Time
This event will also be streamed live. Please sign the digital guest book and watch the Live stream at this link

Live stream

Private Burial following service

Official obituary can be found here.

Jesse Petersen Has Passed Away.

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Friends,

This is not the post I wanted to write today. I wanted to click “Publish” on the draft we’ve already got saved named “It’s a GO!”

But God in His providence—a providence Jesse leaned so heavily on these last few months—decided to answer Jesse’s prayers for perfect lungs with a resounding yes, just not the way we wanted.

Today is a profoundly sad day for us, and no amount of platitudes could or should soothe the ache. But Jesse would tell you right now to run to Jesus.

I just set up a new fund on this site to help with Funeral Expenses and to support his family. Jesse was the sole income of his family. Please give generously.

**UPDATE** in less than 24 hours we crushed the $20K goal, and I want to continue to raise funds so that this precious family does not have to worry about money at this time, at all. Jesse was not able to purchase life insurance as a CFer, so this fund is now becoming just that for his family. I’m bumping the goal to $100K, since the initial goal was not based on anything other than “please give.” If this were simply a “funeral expenses” goal, I’d feel differently. Now, let’s crush the new goal.
**second update** I just found out that Jesse did indeed have a minimal life insurance policy in place, and I wanted to be totally upfront about that. These funds are still very much needed, though, and I recommend continuing to give!

Funeral and Family Expenses Fund

Thank you to all our donors, we have met our fundraising goal.

We Got The CALL!

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Hello all. My name is Ben Meredith, and I’m a good friend of Jesse’s. He’s asked me to update the site here with the latest, so that he and Kristin can avoid having to repost everywhere.

The reason you get to hear from me for a bit is THEY GOT THE CALL! in the wee hours of Friday. Here’s what we know so far:

Surgery scheduled for 4PM today, pending a whole bunch of things with the donor and other transplant teams harvesting other organs.

Donor is a “19-29 year old male” in “fit” condition, and all the experts on hand think it’s a good match.

From Kristin:

We’ve had EKG, x-ray, tons of labs so far, and two doctors for questions. Everything is looking good. Surgery tentatively scheduled for 4pm, we won’t know until very shortly before then if it’s a go. We feel calm and confident. Thanks for continuing to pray!!

If you are into praying, now’s the time.

Also, (and he didn’t tell me to say this and will probably be mad that I did) since he stayed listed for so long, he expressed some mild concern regarding finances at the end of the month. It would mean a ton if, in addition to praying, you’d donate.

I’ll update with more as I hear it.