Photos by JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Christy Bennett gives her 7-year-old son Drew medicine at their home in Roanoke County on Wednesday. Drew is waiting on a transplant of nearly his entire digestive system, and until then, he has to carry pumps connected to his body for all but four hours out of each day.

Drew gives his older brother Alex, 11, bunny ears as they play in their family home. Drew can't leave home often because his immune system is weak.

JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Drew Bennett plays a video game Wednesday as his siblings Alex, 11, and Caity, 5, watch. Drew, like most 7-year-olds, enjoys playing games and building things with magnets and Legos.

Drew Bennett and his family arrived in Roanoke County late one summer, after school had started and Pee Wee football sign-ups were over.

They didn't know anyone, and no one knew that Drew, then 4, suffered from a rare illness that kept him tethered to a backpack full of pumps and liquids -- away from sports and away from school.

Within months, members of the family's new church began visiting their Hunting Hills house with prayers for Drew, and the 9- and 10-year-olds on the neighborhood football team started dedicating games to him.

As people rallied to help the Bennetts with the extraordinary work and expense of caring for Drew, they began to realize the family had brought something with them when they moved here from South Florida in 2007: strength that perseveres through hard times.

"I'm a veteran of Desert Storm, and I don't think that I could handle their lives on a daily basis as well as they do," said Jeff Harbeson, a family friend who coached the Red Brigade Pee Wee team in 2009. "I have such deep admiration for them, keeping things as normal as they do."

Drew, now 7, was diagnosed with an incurable condition called acute colonic pseudo-obstruction when he was 2. His malfunctioning stomach and lower bowel can't process food, which means he can't eat or eliminate waste.

For 20 hours a day, he carries a backpack with pumps that are connected to surgical openings on his torso that give him medicine and liquid nutrients, and carry away waste. The only hope for him to have a better life is a transplant of his stomach, intestines and possibly his liver -- a risky procedure that, if successful, will bring new complications.

His mother, Christy Bennett, remembers the day she realized her son had a problem that would change life for her family. It was a hot summer day in the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, and she took off her son's shirt. Then she noticed his stomach looked like it had a brick in it.

"From the moment that I saw his stomach bulging like that, I had fear of the unknown," Christy said. "Initially I thought, 'Oh my God, I hope it's not cancer -- I hope it's not something horrific.' It was a very fearful time because we had no idea what we were looking at or where we were going."

Christy and her husband, Doug, were career-minded parents -- she was a human resources executive and he was a sales manager for a telecommunication company. Drew's illness changed that.

Christy quit her job to take care of Drew, his brother Alex, 11, and sister Caity, 5. (Another sister, Sam, 19, goes to college in Tallahassee.)

Doug Bennett's employer, communication cable manufacturer Siemon Co., transferred him to Roanoke in 2007 so the family could be closer to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where Drew was being treated.

Drew has had 15 surgeries since his diagnosis. Christy, a Bible-quoting Christian, turned to prayer for strength and documented her family's story on the website PrayforDrew.com. She doesn't hide sadness, anger, fear, happiness or her reliance on faith in her posts.

"I literally felt like I was drowning and then finally admitted to myself I needed to deal with things, and I needed to start now," she wrote in May after receiving bad news from a physician. "An overwhelming wave of loss, grief, anger and guilt washed over me, and I broke under the weight of it all. It would be that moment of brokenness that God would begin to heal my shattered heart."

Friends, including Harbeson, responded by thanking the Bennetts for their inspiration. In the 2009 season, Harbeson made jerseys for Red Brigade players, including Drew's brother Alex, with "1" printed on the left sleeve. Drew is the team's No. 1.

"What I tried to instill in the boys was that playing football is not for everyone, and their job was to play for those who can't play," Harbeson said. "I think Drew sets an example for them, and anytime the little guy was on the sidelines, it made everyone step up their game."

People at Cave Spring Baptist Church, where the Bennetts are members, have prayed, sent cards, collected offerings and organized a mega yard sale for Drew. That's even though most members haven't met Drew or Christy because Drew's immune system is too weak for him to attend services or activities.

"The amount that we're going to raise in relationship with what they need is very small, but we want to show our love for them," said Gerri Walters, a church member helping place price tags on the merchandise for the yard sale.

Drew was added to a national organ transplant waiting list in September and could wait more than three years for the organs.

The operation would be performed at Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh, and can cost more than $3 million, Doug Bennett said. The Bennetts have paid for Drew's treatments with health insurance and by draining savings for their retirement and their children's college expenses.

Christy said she would move to Pittsburgh with Drew, Alex and Caity for Drew's yearlong recovery, and that the new health complications he could face are a lingering worry. Yet she keeps a focus on what she says her is her mission.

"We've realized that our purpose as parents had changed to keeping our family together and to be an example for others," she said.