Consider yourself warned—the story of an 11-year-old Columbia, Tenn., girl who raises money to help children with cancer at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital has been known to move people to tears.

The story begins the week before Christmas 2005, when Savannah Edwards learned that her cousin, Stephen Dysinger, had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that attacks muscle cells and connective tissues, called Rhabdomyosarcoma.

The condition is deadly. Only 50 percent of children diagnosed in the early stages of the disease survive for five years. Unfortunately for Stephen—whose father, Wayne Dysinger, M.D., chairs the department of preventive medicine at LLU School of Medicine, and whose mother, June Dysinger, is a certified nurse midwife at Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center—no one survives when the illness is diagnosed in the late stages, as his was.

“I remember sitting in my room feeling so sad that he was sick,” Savannah recalls, “and wishing I could do something. I wanted to help in a big way.”

After praying for Stephen’s recovery, individual members of Savannah’s family—mom Janelle, dad Craig, brothers Nick and Zack, and sister Maryssa—began making plans to encourage Stephen. “I decided I would use my creativity to make handmade cards, dishcloths, and baby blankets to sell and raise money for him,” Savannah explains.

Savannah’s ministry of selling handcrafted gifts at church and community functions soon paid off. In a matter of days, she had reached her goal of making enough money to outfit Stephen with some comfortable new clothes to replace the ones he outgrew after losing so much weight to the disease. Now she wondered what to do with the money she kept earning.

Stephen suggested she come to California and keep him company. When she arrived, Savannah was shocked by the change in Stephen’s appearance. Although she had known he was receiving chemotherapy at LLU Children’s Hospital, she still wasn’t prepared for the sight. “He had lost all his beautiful hair,” she notes. “Seeing him like that made me realize how sick he really was. I wished I could take his place, or that he wouldn’t have to be so sick.”

When the time came for her to return home, Savannah set her sights on raising more money.

She mobilized her siblings and the neighbor kids into helping her open a lemonade and Kool-Aid stand.

“My cousin Stephen is one of my heroes,” Savannah remembers. “He was 13 years old and in the seventh grade at Loma Linda Middle School when he died. He was full of life—always—even when he was so sick.”

As the disease progressed, Stephen increasingly drew inspiration and courage from his relationship with God. John Brunt, senior pastor at Azure Hills Adventist church attributes Stephen’s incredible optimism in the face of death to his deep faith. “He managed to thoroughly live each day and each moment with no significant worries about the past or the future. He showed an awesome strength and desire to live, but was also at peace with death because he knew that heaven was next.”

Despite Stephen’s resolute assurance, his impending death proved challenging to the family he left behind. “It was just crushing is all I can say,” Janelle remembers.

“My parents were out in California and they called to tell me that today would probably be ‘the day.’ We were all in shock and just numb.”

“When I found out he wasn’t going to live,” Savannah shares, “I cried! He was so young. But I also saw the journey that God put Stephen on during his time of being sick.”

The family got the news that Stephen had passed away in his sleep at 1:11 p.m. on Thursday, July 20, 2006.

“Savannah said she wanted to go to the funeral even if she had to raise her own money,” Janelle recalls. “So she sold cards at the church social that Saturday night and just did manage to raise enough cash to buy a round-trip ticket for herself.”

“I was sad at the service,” Savannah says. “The hardest part was when my brother Nick talked. I had never seen him that sad. It was all he could do not to break down and cry. He kept wiping his eyes. Hearing him talk about all the times he and Stephen enjoyed together was good, but I felt kind of sad realizing that Stephen wouldn’t be there anymore. It’s still hard going back and knowing he’s not there.”

A couple days later, representatives of the Dysinger and Edwards families returned to the 4800 unit where Stephen had stayed during his hospitalization at Children’s Hospital.

“It was a very emotional experience,” Janelle remembers. “It was the first time Wayne and June had been back since Stephen’s death. There was so much love in that room. The staff made us feel like they could really empathize with what we were going through.”

During the visit, Savannah presented the staff with $135 she had raised. She asked that it go to the playroom where Stephen had spent so much time enjoying games and toys. “It was really hard to hold back the tears,” Janelle shares.

Once back home, Savannah sent a box of dishcloths for the nurses on the 4800 floor. Then she reflected on the future of her fundraising activities. Stephen might be gone, but other brave children were still battling cancer and she thought it would be a fitting memorial to his legacy if she raised money to help them in his honor.

Savannah turned her attention to three projects named as beneficiaries of The Stephen Neil Dysinger Memorial Fund, including a memorial cabin at an Adventist youth camp in Maine.

Following those projects, Savannah then pledged to donate $100 every three months to LLU Children’s Hospital.

“I plan to exceed that agreement as much as I can,” she states. “As long as I am alive, I want to help other families whose children are dealing with this awful disease.”

To date, she’s raised more than $3,000 and is not about to quit. She makes time each week to create lots of cards and crafts to help children with cancer.

“There are many children’s hospitals across the country,” she acknowledges, “but it is important to me that the money I raise go to where my cousin spent his time, at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital. That makes my heart feel good.”

“Mom always tells me that Jesus gives each of us our own special gifts,” she observes. “Mine seem to be acts of love and service for others. I want to keep on doing that when I’m grown. My Grandpa and Grandma Dysinger served others their whole lives. They worked at Loma Linda University and overseas for a long, long time, and everywhere they go, people know them. I want to be known like that,” she remarks, “for what I can do for others.”

Savannah thinks for a moment, before offering one final insight that undergirds her generosity and drives her will to give.

“I can’t wait to see Stephen in heaven,” she says, “and tell him all the cool things I got to do because of my love for him.”