A longtime Christian retailer in Fort Wayne, Ind., has received prayer and support as he undergoes treatment for a potentially fatal brain cancer.

On Web sites Facebook.com and CaringBridge.com, people by the hundreds are signing in with messages of support and divine reassurance for Paul Holsopple--who has owned and operated the Anchor Room Christian bookstore with his wife, Pauline, since 1979--The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reported.

In February, Holsopple, 65, was diagnosed with an advanced tumor after an apparently unrelated fall that the couple, devout Mennonite Christians, now consider providential.

The fall "was like a God thing that it happened, because if it hadn't, we might not have thought about going to the doctor, and the tumor was already spreading. It was like a blessing," Pauline, 66, told the newspaper.

More than 600 online messages have been sent to Holsopple, and countless more have followed family postings anonymously. Other supporters have dropped by the store.

"You are all wonderful examples of people with genuine faith, who follow God's heart. Keep allowing God to refine you through this fire," wrote Janelle Lehman, a former employee. "I am so glad my path crossed the Anchor Room's for six-plus years. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. You have so many people praying for you and who love you."

Holsopple finished the last of the radiation treatments last month. Now he'll wait for several weeks before having an MRI to check on the tumor's status. "God has something in mind for this," he told the Journal Gazette, "but I don't know what it is yet."

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