Pastor Trish Overcomes Stroke to Return to the Altar: 'My Story's Not Done'

A Journey of Resilience and Faith

Pastor Trish Gunn’s sermons are more than just messages—they are heartfelt conversations. She speaks to her audience as if they are old friends, sharing personal stories, humor, and deep reflections on life. One time, she compared the challenges of faith to a pair of leggings that have stretched after gaining a few pounds. This approach makes her message relatable and comforting to those who listen.

Her journey has not been without hardship. In 2023, her one-year-old grandson, Elijah, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer that primarily affects children. The ordeal was terrifying—Elijah was intubated twice and placed in a medically-induced coma. Miraculously, he survived, but the experience left a lasting impact on Trish. She turned this painful chapter into a powerful sermon delivered at New City Church in Wilmington on October 23, 2023.

That same year, Trish faced another devastating challenge. Twelve days after delivering her sermon, she collapsed at home and was rushed to Christiana Hospital. Doctors diagnosed her with a stroke, leaving the left side of her body paralyzed. Over the next six weeks, she moved between hospitals, undergoing treatment for an intracranial hemorrhage. During this time, she struggled with basic tasks—walking, talking, and even chewing. But despite her physical limitations, her mind remained focused on her work. She worried about unfinished sermons and projects, constantly asking her husband, Derrick, how the church was doing.

Derrick, a longtime Eagles reporter and TV anchor, became her full-time caregiver. He manages her medications, drives her to appointments, and helps with daily tasks. Their relationship has evolved, with Derrick taking on roles such as hair stylist, chauffeur, and secretary. Despite the challenges, they have found progress. Trish has regained some mobility, can walk with a cane, and has improved speech and memory.

Now, she is back at the altar. In January 2024, Trish returned to Trinity Community Church in Hockessin, Delaware, where she previously served as an executive pastor. She continues to counsel congregants through phone calls, Zoom sessions, and in-person meetings. Though her voice is softer and her movements slower, her message remains strong.

“I know that my story’s not done yet,” she said. “It’s going to be a story that somebody can say, ‘If God can do it for her, God can do it for me.’”

A Love Story Rooted in Faith

Trish and Derrick met in 1977 at Imperial Valley College in California. They were both 19 years old and took a sociology class together. Trish had heard about an upcoming pop quiz and decided to warn Derrick. Later, she saw him eating a burger with lettuce and tomato pushed aside.

“You’re mom would be disappointed in you for not eating your vegetables,” she said.

“I don’t have a mom,” Derrick replied.

At the time, Carrie Gunn, Derrick’s mother, had died unexpectedly a month earlier. The family lived in Milwaukee, but Derrick wanted a change of scenery and moved to California for college.

Trish told her mother, Adela, about her classmate and instructed her daughter to invite him for dinner. Soon after, they began dating. By 1982, they were married.

After graduating, Trish worked as a television sports anchor. Her career took the couple from El Centro, California, to San Diego, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. While Derrick’s job demanded long hours, Trish often followed him, making it difficult to hold a full-time job.

Despite this, Trish felt a spiritual calling from a young age. Growing up in Calexico, California, she connected with students who struggled to fit in. She attended Mass regularly and even woke up at 6:45 a.m. to go before class.

For a while, she considered becoming a nun, but ultimately decided against it because she wanted to have children. She worked as an esthetician and makeup artist for five years before becoming a stay-at-home mother after giving birth to their first child in 1987.

A Calling in the Church

In 1997, Trish was hired as a children’s pastor at Wilmington First Assembly of God Church (now New City). The family had recently moved to Delaware due to Derrick’s new job as an anchor on Comcast SportsNet. Trish had also begun attending a school of biblical studies.

A local pastor needed help with the children’s ministry and offered her a job. It felt like the perfect fit—a way to work in the church and with the young people she always felt connected to.

“The minute I got up on the stage, I knew that that was what I was called to do,” she said. “It was like putting on a piece of clothing that fits you so nicely.”

Trish worked at New City for 13 years. She volunteered for Vacation Bible School, winter retreat camps, and summer camps, often bringing Derrick along to help. At first, he was hesitant, but he eventually found fulfillment in the work.

“Ministry work is a lot of thankless work,” Derrick said. “But when you see those kids, years later, and you see what they’re doing, you know it was worth it.”

In 2010, Trish took a sabbatical, working as a guest speaker at local churches and women’s groups. Five years later, she was hired as an executive pastor at Trinity Community Church. Through it all, she and Derrick continued to find ways to give back outside of their day jobs.

They’d lend money to single moms, let members of the church stay with them for extended periods, and helped a young woman who was kicked out of her abusive partner’s house. She stayed with them for almost a year.

A New Reality

In 2022, the lead pastor at Trinity, T.J. Harris, asked Trish if she’d consider returning to New City. The church was struggling and needed direction, and Harris thought Trish could provide some. She agreed and became lead pastor at the church, while continuing to work as an executive pastor at Trinity.

It was meant to be a temporary arrangement but quickly became all-consuming. Trish would attend staff meetings at both churches, hold one-on-one meetings with congregants during the week, and pastor on weekends. She often worked until 2, 3, or 4 a.m.

“She never slept,” Derrick said. “The next thing you know, she’s up at 8 a.m. because she has another meeting.”

On November 3, 2023, the night before the stroke, the Gunns watched a movie at home. After it ended, Derrick looked at his wife. He could see that she was exhausted.

“Are you OK?” He asked.

“People have been asking me that all day,” Trish replied. “They’ve been telling me I look tired.”

Embracing Change

Trish didn’t drink. She didn’t smoke. She watched her weight and walked 5,000 steps a day. But despite all of her efforts, the pastor’s first instinct was to wonder what she had done to cause such a devastating health event. Perhaps she’d angered God. Or ignored one of his messages.

Derrick thinks the stroke could have been stress-related. To date, no doctor has been able to give the Gunns a definitive answer. There may not be an answer. What is undeniable, though, is the impact the illness has had on both of their lives.

Nothing has been spared. Trish has lost the essentials—short-term memory recall, and the ability to move freely—but also her daily rituals. She was a skilled baker who loved to swim and spend mornings at Rehoboth Beach, sipping coffee on the boardwalk.

She took pride in her appearance, making sure her makeup and hair were done before her husband woke up. Now, her makeup routine takes hours. Derrick does her hair. He picks out her clothes and dresses her in the morning.

Trish can’t drive herself to appointments. She can’t fix something up in the kitchen. She can’t go to the bathroom or shower on her own. For someone who was fiercely independent, it has been a frustrating experience.

Derrick has lost some independence, too. He hasn’t worked a full-time job since the stroke. The cadence of his life, once marked by the rhythms of free agency, training camp, and Eagles games, is now determined by his wife’s doctors’ appointments.

This year, he will do an Eagles pregame and postgame show with Marc Farzetta and Seth Joyner on Joyner’s YouTube channel, but even that will require careful planning. He can’t work a full-time job without hiring a certified nurse assistant, but the Gunns can’t afford one.

So for now, they wait until Trish’s condition improves.

“I feel isolated,” Derrick said. “My focus has always been keeping tabs on football, doing stats, talking to people, getting information, stories. I don’t do much of that now. My focus is being on the phone with doctors. I’m antsy. I want to work. I don’t even care if it’s in broadcasting anymore. I tell people, I could go to work at Costco or Cabela’s and be just as happy. I like to be busy. I’m busy morning until night now, but I feel like I’m living in the movie Groundhog Day. Every day is the same day.”

A New Chapter

From the beginning of their relationship, Trish and Derrick talked about helping each other through the aches and pains of old age. But no one anticipated a lifestyle change this drastic and this sudden.

So, when Trish was released from the hospital, she presented her husband with a choice. “This is my sentence, not yours,” she told him. “You can leave if you want.”

Derrick refused to entertain it.

“She has extended herself beyond belief,” Derrick said. “She has taken care of the family. She’s taken care of other people’s families that we call family. A lot of people walk away from stuff like this. That thought never crossed my mind. I will never abandon someone I’ve been with for over four decades.”

One thing they haven’t lost is their sarcasm. Trish likes to call her husband “the warden.” Derrick likes to make fun of her cosmetic needs—the face creams, the eyelash appointments, the nail appointments.

“There is so much involved,” he said, “from the hair, to the makeup, to the creams.”

“The next thing I know, I look at him, and he’s trying to copy my skincare routine,” Trish said. “He tries to use my products.”

Laughter has helped. So has the church. When Trish first got sick, some congregants started sending checks in the mail. Others tucked $50 or $100 bills into get-well-soon cards.

One friend started a GoFundMe that raised more than $35,000. Another remodeled their entire downstairs bathroom, so it could be wheelchair-accessible, for free. Another paid their mortgage for three months.

The Gunns were given so much food after Trish’s stroke that they couldn’t fit it all into their refrigerator. Initially, these gestures were hard to accept. They were normally the ones who gave, not the ones who received. But they’ve learned to embrace the change.

“It’s amazing,” Derrick said. “You pour into people with no expectations of anything other than that this is what you’re called to do. And then, when something like this happens, you realize how many people rally around your cause. Because of what you’ve done for them.”

Finding Strength in Adversity

Throughout her rehab, Trish stayed in close contact with T.J. Harris. They’d talk about her return to pastoring and how that would work. Sometimes, she’d text him and say, “I’m ready,” only to call back a few minutes later and say, “I’m not.”

This past January, she began to attend church at Trinity again, with Derrick by her side. Before long, she was hanging around the altar after services, praying for whoever needed a prayer.

Trish now counsels multiple congregants a week, by Zoom, phone, and in-person, at a local coffee shop. The pastor hasn’t shied away from talking about her stroke; if anything, she has found that it has deepened her connections.

A couple of weeks ago, a woman approached Trish at Trinity. She was hunched over a walker and asked for a prayer. Trish took her hands, closed her eyes, and prayed that she would be able to straighten her body and walk once more. She prayed for her independence.

“I started to feel like myself again,” she said.

There may not have been a reason for her stroke, but that doesn’t mean it was without purpose. Since Nov. 4, 2023, Trish has been taking notes. She wants to share her story, in a sermon, or a book, or some other format.

Derrick hopes that it will be at an altar. That his wife will stand up proud, like she once did, and deliver a message that’s entirely new.

“We just know that there’s a bigger testimony coming out of this,” he said, “and I can’t wait to hear it.”