On the other side; Vicksburg native gives God glory after beating cancer

“In May of 2023, I was diagnosed with cancer,” Willie Glasper began his story,
“I asked the doctor what’d I do; what caused it, and he said, ‘just a stroke of bad luck.’”

Faced with this life altering information, Glasper took some time to process,

“I had to swallow that for a moment. The next day I had to kind of refresh my mind again and look at where I was at that time. So I decided to call all of my children to let them know individually, and with my oldest child I broke down, but then I got to thinking, ‘God’s got me, and I’m going to stand on my faith’ and that’s what I did.”

Glasper had developed a cancer known as GIST, a gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Glasper had been experiencing abnormal bloating, and the seriousness of the matter was made clear when he went to his urologist at Baptist in Jackson. “He told me, ‘You don’t need to see me; you need to go upstairs to a surgeon. So immediately we went up there.”

Glasper scheduled the surgery to remove the tumor, but the date kept getting moved back for various reasons. “In that span, I decided I wanted a second opinion.”

“I called up MD Anderson in Houston and made an appointment with them. The tumor was 21cm large, and what they wanted to do to keep the surgery from being so invasive, was to give me a pill called Gleevec that shrunk the tumor down to 9cm,”

Beyond the wisdom of this plan, which worked just as they had intended, Glasper praised MD Anderson Cancer Center as “one of the best places in the world to go to. They are so thorough. They leave no stone unturned. They check you out thoroughly… they’re genuine… from the custodians up through the doctors, everyone was just as pleasant throughout my whole experience with them.”

Glasper emphasized the overwhelming wave of spiritual support he felt from the community:

“There was prayers going up. Everybody had me on their prayer list, churches, black and white and individuals.”

Before his procedure last year, Glasper maintained a positive attitude based on his faith, “Before the surgery I sat my family down. I told them what my plans were, to go in, have surgery, and see them on the other side of it.”

This attitude paid off on February 29th, “We had the surgery, and hey, he got it all. I am 100% cancer free and have a clean bill of health.”

“One of the most touching moments I had, “recounted Glasper, “was when we went to ring the bell at the radiation center. I went there with my family. For me to ring that bell… I cried. People were passing by with congratulations to say that I’m cancer free.”

God was so good with this thing. Before the cancer I already had a relationship with the Lord, so it wasn’t like, ‘hey this is something new.’ I have so many stories,” said Glasper referring to how many times he credits God for helping him through. 

Glasper continued, “What I went through was an experience, and right now I’m on a mission to encourage people who have cancer. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s something we experience in life, but we have to give our trust and love to Christ, because he’s gonna get the glory out of it,” said Glasper, “Ain’t nothing I did. It’s all what He did; He brought me through this.

Glasper gave further advice for awareness, cautioning the negative tendency to associate cancer with an automatic death sentence, “We got to stop putting that D word with cancer, and stop hiding it, putting it under the rug. Tell your story where people can pray for you… that’s what I’m trying to encourage.”

Glasper works at the post office. He also teaches a bible class at Christian Home MB Church on Lee Rd. in Vicksburg. 

Glasper concluded with his memory of waking up from surgery,

“When I woke up, my family was around my bedside. They was smiling, and I began to smile. All I could tell ‘em was, ‘Look at God,’ and ‘Only God can do this.’ Whatever you’re going through, you got to trust God with it. Another key thing, when you start to have problems with your body, when things start to seem abnormal, get it checked out; don’t wait ‘til it’s too late.”