Seated at a coffee shop, tears of joy mingle with tears of sorrow in Misty’s blue eyes as she starts sharing how Hunter touched the lives of everyone he met. “From the very beginning, Hunter was a miracle. Our first son, Trey, who is 4, was born December 22, 2005. But because of a thyroid condition I developed, my doctor said it would be hard or next to impossible to get pregnant again,” Misty relates. At church, she asked for special prayer to get pregnant again, and Misty says God answered their prayer. “It was the best pregnancy. I was not sick at all. Hunter was born December 11, 2007. He had lots of black curly hair. He was a gorgeous baby.” With his sweet temperament, Hunter quickly became the “church baby” everyone loved to cuddle.
Misty and Tommy had met during high school at a church youth service. They married March 18, 2005. After working with the children’s ministry, the two became youth leaders for Hicks United Pentecostal Church. For three years, they pastored the “Shama” youth group at the church. The youth group and their church family would often laugh at the antics of Trey and Hunter. “Our two sons were super close. Trey was the protective older brother,” Misty says with a catch in her breath, and adds, “Trey has told us that Hunter is in Heaven with Jesus and that he is laughing.”
Parents expect to outlive their children, but when the unexpected happens, they often search for unexplainable answers. “As a youth leader, I use to tell the kids I will serve God through anything. I would say, ‘When you can’t stand, stand some more.’ When we lost Hunter, it would have been so easy to turn my back on God. But I’m still standing for Jesus. I know God can raise the dead and heal the sick. But God kept him,” Tommy says, adding that his relationship with God is “unshakable.”
After three years of serving as youth pastors at Hicks, Tommy says he felt like God was leading them in a new direction of ministry. The Iles family joined the Sanctuary of Praise church in Pineville. Tommy and Misty recently started helping with the youth service and Misty even helped with the youth music service. “There was no shadow of doubt that God placed us at Sanctuary of Praise. They didn’t really need us, but we’d need them,” Misty says, adding that her whole family was introduced to their new congregation the Sunday before the accident.
“I knew something was very wrong. I saw Hunter lying on his back on the front passenger side. I started screaming. I couldn’t open the door,” Misty admits. Her sister opened the door, picked up the toddler and ran to the pool, hoping to cool him off with the water. Misty frantically called 911, and says the first-responders were at her house within three minutes. Paramedics arrived as well as a helicopter medical team to transport the toddler. But due to difficulties with the helicopter’s engine, Hunter was not able to be flown to the hospital and was transported by the ambulance. Misty remembers she kissed Hunter goodbye before riding with her parents to the emergency room.
When Tommy arrived at the hospital he did not know all the details of Hunter’s condition related to the heat exposure in the vehicle. Misty admits it was sheer agony waiting as the doctors and nurses worked to try and resuscitate their child. She was praying with every fiber of her being, Misty says, alternating with pleading. “They worked very hard on Hunter. But at 6:37pm, the doctor told us there was nothing else they could do. I was devastated. I asked myself, ‘How could you have let this happen?’ I prided myself on being a good mom.”
Tommy and Misty never returned to their rental home after the accident. Their family packed up their belongings for them and stored them. The couple and Trey have temporarily moved in with Misty’s parents until they set up their new mobile home on their land in Hineston this month. They never wanted to see the car again that Hunter had climbed into either. A local dealership kindly sent someone to pick up the vehicle and the couple was able to get a previously owned Chevy Tahoe to replace their vehicle.
“God brings beauty from ashes. And God is showing us how Hunter is being used,” Misty says, adding that the toddler’s funeral service touched hundreds. “The funeral was like a home-going service. God’s presence was so strong in that place. At the service we sang ‘All I Need to do is Worship.’ If my soul could be heard, that’s what it would sound like. At the funeral, we stood and started praising God,” Misty recalls with heart-wrenching emotion.
At the service, Misty says she held Hunter wrapped in his blanket, and asked God for strength. “God is carrying us through this. Hunter was ours, but he was God’s first. God is our rock. Our relationship with God – that’s untouchable. I always told my mom that Hunter was a little angel who had wandered away from Heaven. But they found him, and took him home.”