Jordan's Story Part 2 "A Playroom, a Prayer, and a Funeral That Changed Eternity"

In this powerful conclusion to Jordan Bono's story, host Lou Lepore sits down with Joe and Michelle Bono to share the moments that changed everything — from a little boy's simple wish for a playroom, to a Disney trip fueled by supernatural strength, to a final prayer that left two parents speechless, and a funeral where the gospel went forth and souls were saved.

Jordan was only six years old when he went home to be with Jesus. But in his short life, he ministered to everyone around him — his church, his family, and an entire auditorium of people who needed to hear about the love of God!

This episode will move you, challenge you, and remind you that God is never caught off guard — not by cancer, not by grief, and not by your darkest trial.

In this episode:

• How Jordan's church rallied to build his dream playroom
• The Make-A-Wish trip to Disney — and the steps Jordan never took again
• The night Jordan said, "I'm gonna go be with Jesus tonight, mom and dad"
• A five-year-old who prayed over his parents with the words of the Holy Spirit
• How Joe preached his first sermon — at his own son's funeral
• The hands that went up "like popcorn" as people gave their lives to Christ
• Why Joe and Michelle say their darkest days were also their brightest

Key Scripture: "Be still, and know that I am God." — Psalm 46:10 "We are more than conquerors through him that loved us." — Romans 8:37

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Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the More Than Conquerors Podcast. I'm your host, Lou LePore. Today we will revisit Joe Michelle and Jordan Bono's journey through Jordan's cancer diagnosis and all that happened around them with their church family. You know, I'm always amazed at the strength and peace that God provides us in our deepest trials. But as always, Jesus never leaves nor forsakes us. In today's episode, we will visit Jordan's last trip with his family through Make a Wish, his final prayer with mom and dad, and of course, the amazing salvation story at his funeral. You don't want to miss it. This is the More Than Conquerors Podcast. Stay tuned.

The Make-A-Wish Story

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Make a Wish has the policy they want it to be the kids make a wish. A lot of families do Disney or this or that. And Jordan, we were in a town home and we had all this toys shoved in one little cubby at the corner, and he never really had his own place. And he we asked him, Jordan, what do you what would you want? He said, I want my own playroom. And it was a sincere request. And we said, Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

It's a five-year-old little boy ready to ready to play. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

So Make a Wish came and we told them of his request, and they made sure they interviewed him and said, Jordan, what do you want? You know, without mom and dad's coaxing. And it was a sweet time. And the Make a Wish said, you know what? That's a great idea. We took them down there and they said, Yeah, I think we could do this. A few days go by, and we get a phone call saying, Joe Michelle, I'm so sorry. The policy is written in such a way that this wish would add equity to your home. So make a wish was unable to fulfill that request.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Okay. What did they do for you?

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Uh we we ended up going to Disney. Yeah. So an all expense pay, limo to the airport. Wow. Kind of thing. But the neat thing is, Michelle was with one of our Esther's wives. What did she say?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

I was saying goodbye to her at the front door and she said, Is everything okay? Because they looked upset

Jordan's Toy Room

SPEAKER_00 2:09

and I said, Yeah, I gotta go to the hospital and tell Jordan that, you know, we're not gonna do his toy rune. And she said, Don't tell him yet. Just wait, you know, don't tell him. So she was able to share it with church family, and it just confirms to me again how important it is to be in the church that God wants you to be in. Because over and over again, so many rallied and were a blessing. A whole year of love, support, cards, meals, painting the kitchen yellow, doing everything they could, and then everyone coming together to build Jordan's toy room, to see the cars in the parking lot, all the people that came to use their talents and gifts, construction, building walls, putting up foundation, putting in carpet, building the handle to go down the steps. Like everyone just wanted to be a blessing and use their gifts and talents. It was beautiful, painted a big mural of a rainbow with a big tree on the wall. Yeah. It was special. It was beautiful down there and to see Jordan come home on his last day. And he was still struggling with paralysis on the right side. So he would get down and scoot down on his little tush feet. And he would scoot down the steps. I'll never forget it. We were on the way home, Jordan and I, and the room was just about finished. We had a sweet man that was finishing up the rug, and Joe said, Don't come yet, don't come yet. So we stopped at a park down the street and we just sat on a bench. I was so excited because I couldn't wait for him to see it. And we just sat there. We had a blanket, and he was just so happy to be done and to be coming home. And we were just, it was just so sweet to hear him so excited of being able to come home and spend time with his family and his brothers who he adored. He adored his brothers, adored them. So to see him go down those steps, and his brothers are down there, and we're down there, and we have video, and that's a very sweet memory of love from a church family. You know, you don't realize how important it is to be in a church that God has for you until you walk through a deep valley and God shows you over and over the love and support that you just cannot get when you're on your own. So it was such a confirmation that we were so grateful to be in our church and our immediate family and friends and so many. I could just numerous amount of people, even strangers that we never know that sent emails or cards, or it just was numerous. But that was such a beautiful day for Jordan to see that that room. That's a sweet memory.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

We had a neighbor, unsaved neighbor, uh, two doors down, and uh she happened to be a foreman of a construction company. So once she heard that, she's like, What's going on over here? She's so she donated a lot of the materials.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yeah, really great. Master carpenters come in and do the all kinds of work for her. So it was just God just exceedingly uh abundantly did above what we get and we're asked for. Poured out the blessing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

I'm just reminded when Christ said that they will know you're my disciples when you have love one for another. Yeah, that's right. And we witnessed it for almost every day of the year. And so you're able to then go to Disney, and that so that had to be some supernatural, God-given strength for him in his final days to hoof it through the parks because you're early September. You walk when you go to Disney.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

That is not a light after a park. I mean, we look back now and think, how did we do that? Yeah. Because we did every park. I mean, every day we were at a different park doing the rides. The funny thing is, Jordan was on some drugs to keep him because uh the after effects of the surgery and coming off the end of another treatment, the anti-mojing medicine he was on. So I remember one that helicopter ride at SeaWorld. And I remember getting on that, and Jordan's right on the front. This simulated helicopter line started to go. And I had to close my eyes right away and kind of just kind of hide in the corner. And I remember peeking up at one point and Jordan's big eyes and big smile and joy and everything. Soak soaking it all in. I just sit for like

The Disney Trip

SPEAKER_02 6:39

a half hour, and Jordan's just like, no big deal. Let's go again, come on.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

See what he's enjoying every minute.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Halfway through that trip. The effects of the tumors coming back start to get into a spy, and he had some rough nights. In fact, he took his last steps at Disney. We came home after that, and just a few days later, he was back in the hospital. And now we were just managing the last few days.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

The last few days come. He's getting ready to go to bed. You put him down, you do your routine, you're walking away. Yeah. But he calls you back. Tell the story.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yes, we'd said goodnight to him in his room.

Jordan's Final Prayer

SPEAKER_00 7:17

He shared a room with his brother Travis, and we had give talked him in, give him hug and kisses and real tight. And it was getting late, and we were leaving the room to walk down the hall to our room. And we heard Jordan say very clearly, gonna be with Jesus tonight. And so mom and dad right away stopped in our tracks. He quickly ran right back in and sat on his bed. And Joe was on one side and I was on the other. And he said, I'm I'm gonna go be with Jesus tonight, mom and dad. And we said, Okay, Jordan. He said, Can I pray for you? Can I pray for my mommy and my daddy? And we said, Okay, that would be great, Jordan. And so we leaned in and I think he put his hands like on the back of our heads. We the three of us were like touching Jordan in the middle. And he just prayed so sweet and so eloquent that I remember at one point I looked up at him because it didn't sound like a five-year-old little boy praying for his parents that he loved so much and that he was gonna miss, and praying for comfort and that God says that you're gonna be okay and that we're gonna be together again. What? And that he loved us, and then he knew we that we were gonna be okay. And it was so beautiful. I'll never forget it.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Yeah, and again, to his last days, last hours. He ministered. Yes, he did. He he did.

Jordan's Last Moments

SPEAKER_02 8:49

He just ministered to us. Yeah. I think it was the next day. That next morning. We didn't go home to see Jesus that night when he passed, and he had a seizure that next day, and he never spoke again. And he died just a few days later.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

And we did want to c take care of him right until the very end.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

As parents and a mama there, how you want to take care of your children to the very end. You want to take care of them, whether it's medicine, you know, whether it's the bag and the pole that you drag into the bathroom, you know, or into the kitchen. And you want to be there and and and take care of them with the medicine and learn everything you can up to the very moment.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

And Michelle and I are there and three dear friends that were very dear to us. Just the bedrock for us. They were just the right mix of unique people to minister to us through that whole time. We had tears together, we laughed together, but and they were there that night, that last night. So it was the five of us. Oh, in the hospital bed, they brought in right in our living room, and Jordan took his last breath. And that moment we couldn't see the angels ushering him in heaven, but they were there. And I had the privileges of that. Jordan had one last tear rolled out the side of his nose. Yes, and dad, I had the privilege to wipe away his last tear. Knowing that he got to heaven and the Lord was able to wipe away his last tear. It was an awesome moment to know that our son was in no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears. And he was with his Lord. And he was cancer free. And he was cancer free. Yeah. Yeah. And again, Pastor Wendell was there.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Came shortly after.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Two or three o'clock in the morning. And just ministered to us once again.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

The verse that comes to mind was where two or three are gathered in his name, like that Christ is present with you. That was clear that his prayer was a Holy Spirit present prayer and not just some five-year-old saying goodnight to mommy and daddy. And that's amazing. What happens next? Obviously, you shared heat passes. And so we get to the funeral, and your prayer through the entire thing was, Lord, use us. Tell us what happened at the funeral.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

We kind of knew that we had a captive audience.

The Funeral & Salvation

SPEAKER_02 11:11

So many people love Jordan. And we knew that a lot of people were going to be at his funeral, and it was going to be an opportunity. I had to kind of look back at it and think there was two times we've had captive audiences, and that was when we got married. We wanted to share the gospel at the beginning of our marriage. And this was another one of those another opportunities where we knew that there was going to be unsafe family, unsafe friends, unsafe co-workers. Just so many people there. And for whatever reason, I had never taught or preached, but Pastor Wendell had asked me that he said, Joe, I'd like you to share some scriptures at at the funeral. He said, I've never asked anybody to do this, but I'd like you to preach at the funeral. And for whatever reason, kind of like that notebook that I had early on, I I had an an an outline. I'd never written an outline in my life for a sermon or teaching, but for whatever reason I had it written down. And and one pastor asked me my piece that I wanted to share God's word and how faithful God is, and God knows the sorrow that we're all feeling, and it's okay. So that day, having never taught before or ever preached, I was able to give a short sermon. It wasn't this long theological masterpiece, but it was something that God had laid on my heart and I got to share the gospel with everybody that was there, you know, attacked auditorium. The pastor came up after and finished up the service and and gave the opportunity for those to respond and in salvation and for Christians to to respond and and rededicate their lives. And I remember, you know, being in the front row, I can't see people responding uh to the salvation call, but Pastor gave the invitation and uh I hear him saying, Yes, I see your hand, and yes, I see your hand, and yes, I see your hand. Mom and dad are in the front row with a casket right in front of us, and we are rejoicing that God used a little at this point, he just turned six years old to make an eternal impact on people's lives. It was such a privilege. I remember going out of the funeral, just full of faith and encouragement and joy. It was one of the greatest days of my life to know that our story, our little boy, and a great God would bring glory to himself in such a what the world would call a tragic event. And Pastor Eifert was there afterwards, and he said, Joe, he said, I saw the hands going up. There was one, and then two, and then three. He's like, the hands were like popcorn just going up all over the place. And we just rejoiced that God was being glorified in the midst of probably the deepest hours of our lives. But somehow they weren't the deepest, they were the the brightest. Funeral side service was just uh it's a place of celebration. One day that grave's gonna open up and his physical body's gonna be reunited with his spirit, and it's a place to celebrate. God is good, God is good.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

And for those to come up to us at the funeral and and tell us, you know, I accepted Christ today. My stepdad. My mom had I had led my mom to Christ. Wow. And we had been praying for my stepfather for for years, and for them to come up to us on the day of our son's funeral and say that my stepfather, Ken, who is so precious, accepted you know, Christ as his savior at his grandson's funeral, was wow, Lord. Amen. What you can do is amazing beyond anything we can ever imagine.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

That's right. And time marches on, and God continues to use our story. We kind of call it the ministry of tears, but it's not

God's Faithfulness & Reflection

SPEAKER_02 15:28

tears of sorrow anymore. It is tears of joy. We can look back and have tears of the pain that he went through and remember it's still there, even though it's 20 plus years later. That emotion is still raw under the surface. But there's way much more joy in the midst of the trial and even through today to know that God is not finished writing the story of our lives and God God is good. The verse that we chose to put on Jordan's grave is probably a verse that I would uh recommend everybody to remember. Be still and know that I am God. Even though we have questions about what God is doing in our lives, like Pastor said, you're gonna have a lot of questions. Some of them are gonna be answered on this side of heaven, and some you'll just have to wait until the other side until you get home. To know that we can be still. God has not lost control of our situation. God has never made a mistake, and he did not start making mistakes with Jordan Bono.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

And we watched miracle after miracle after miracle, and God says, just be still. I have this. And trusting in him, resting in him, and trying to be still, God is in control.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

After the passing of anyone, a loved one, a friend, not just a child, the trials don't stop coming. It's just it's almost like the start of a whole new ball game, and questions being answered and those things. And to the listeners, the Lord's army is out there, and we need to put on the full armor of God. So, what do you say to the family, a church member, a non-church member, someone listening to this podcast the first time? You're in the trial, you're finding out that this person that you

Encouragement for Those in Trial

SPEAKER_01 17:15

love may have passed away. You're finding out that maybe they did pass away, and now you're trying to pick up the pieces of what life is now. What do you say to those people?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Get better, not better. That's something our pastors taught us over the years. Respond in faith, respond well, because we had alluded to the fact that when you go through a trial, your spiritual walk goes on steroids. Just the opposite of it is true. If a trial enters into your life, and it doesn't have to be a big trial, losing a child, and sometimes the trials of everyday life can trip us up. So I I would I would ask and remind people that don't minimize your trials. Don't minimize what God is allowing you to go through today. They might not be as big as losing a child, but they're big enough for you that God can teach you in that moment. And we need to respond in faith to know that God's control. He's not surprised by anything that he allows into our lives. For us, it was a phone call saying your son has a brain tumor. But for the everyday Christian, we've had many years of trials, and we need to respond to trials, whether they're big or small, in the same way. We need to respond in faith, knowing that God has this. God is not in the business of making mistakes in our lives. He's sovereign. Everything that he allows into our lives have to go through his sovereign hands. And whatever he allows, it's for good. He's doing something good.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Romans 8 28 rings true. God works all things together for good. Yeah. To them that love God and are called according to his purpose. Do we really believe that? Do you really believe that God works all things together for good? And God's word is powerful, true. And if we truly believe that, then we can trust in his will.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Well, thank you, Joe and Michelle, for being on the show. And we really appreciate the story that you're willing to share and your faith and strength that God gave you, that you were willing to show during this trial. Friends, if you're listening today, Jesus said something special in Matthew 11, 28. He said, Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give

The Gospel Message

SPEAKER_01 19:38

you rest. Friend, God offers a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. Your sin is what separates you from God, and that can be forgiven, and heaven can be your future home. It's as simple as A B C. A, admit you're a sinner. Romans 3, 23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Bring to God a heart of repentance. When God says repent, he means do a 180 in your life. Turn away from life your way and do it the way Jesus teaches us. B, believe. Believe that Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, and rose again the third day. Acts 16.31 says it this way. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. See, confess. Romans 10.9 says, if thou wilt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart the Father had raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Friend, the distance between you and going to heaven after this life is one decision away. If you made a decision for Christ, we desire to help you find a Bible-preaching church. Email us at More Than Conquerors Podcast 837 at gmail.com and we will help you on your new walk with Jesus. Be encouraged, Christian. Romans 8, 37 through 39 tells us that we are more than conquerors because nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host, Lou Lepore, and this has been the More Than Conquerors Podcast, where today's test is tomorrow's testimony. God bless you.