Rawd Allen was first diagnosed with brain cancer in 1994, but February 2014 happened to be the opportune time to attend an Inheritance of Hope (IoH) Legacy Retreat^®.

At first Paul and Alexis Johnson from Fresno, Calif., weren’t sure if the Inheritance of Hope (IoH) Legacy Retreat® was right for them. Paul was feeling better and their children were both less than three years old. But much in their past five years has been unexpected.

“When you’re living your life MRI to MRI, it’s hard to plan ahead,” Alexis said.

“We knew about Inheritance of Hope (IoH) for a while but never realized how incredible it was until we were a part of it,” said Jay Maier.  Jay, his wife Tara, and their five children lived near IoH Legacy Retreat® Director Jill Thompson in Rochester, Minn. Tara said her family prayed for the families that went on Legacy Retreats® but didn’t expect to attend one themselves.

Phyllis Young learned about Inheritance of Hope when a local North Carolina television station featured the organization. She immediately knew her family would enjoy going to an IOH Legacy Retreat®.

“I knew we took things for granted and we needed to take some time to step back and enjoy being a family,” she said.

When Amy Martin from North Carolina was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, her two oldest children, John and Jennifer, were respectively off at college and working in California. But her youngest, Lyndi, was 7 years old and still lived at home.  “She has grown up with the ups and downs of the cancer world,” Amy said. “You worry about

Amanda Hichkad has stage IV cancer that started as cervical cancer in 2008 but spread to her spine, lungs, and liver. She’s been through surgeries, radiation, and 13 rounds of chemotherapy, and she visits doctors several times a week to keep the illness under control.

That’s all in addition to being the mother of three boys

Mike Coleman wears a patch to treat tumors in his brain that his 5-year-old daughter, Leah, calls his “snow cap.”

Leah has started kindergarten, joined the Girl Scouts, and loves dancing and Disney princesses. Although she may not know the technical term for her dad’s Novocure device, the Colemans from Lock Haven, Penn., started making efforts to

Last year the Kramers from Indiana went on their first family trip: an all-expenses-paid Legacy Retreat® in Orlando. Nolan, 5, and Aryka, 3, still talk about