Citizens of Greenville gathered Sunday at the home of Matthew Golden to create a circle of prayer.

People from all over the county gathered in support of the Golden family at 2 p.m. where they joined hands and made a complete circle around the home.

The citizens remained at the Golden home in silent and spoken prayer for as long as they desired.

The Golden family was very emotional and grateful for the show of support.

&uot;We would just like to thank everyone for coming out and showing their support,&uot; said Jerry Golden. &uot;We hadn’t expected this big of a turnout. We are very thankful for each and every one of you.&uot;

He said the support of the community had been a large help and would continue to help the family get through the difficult time.

&uot;We have received such a large amount of help from everyone so far,&uot; he said. &uot;We know that with your help and God’s we will get through this.&uot;

The idea to circle the house in prayer came from an entry in the Bible where Israelites surrounded Jericho and shouted with all their might.

By shouting they were able to collapse the walls and become victorious. By uniting in a circle around the Golden another victory was hoped for.

Through the circle of prayer the citizens hope to help Matthew and the Golden family rise above the odds.

Matthew was injured in a December 28 automobile accident.

After the accident his chances for survival were slim.

However, despite remaining in a coma Golden has shown remarkable improvements.

On Monday, Matthew returned to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham to see his neurosurgeon, rehab physician, general surgeon and to have some pre-op work completed.

According to this website, Matthew’s Matthew’s shunt is functioning well, but his body is not absorbing the cerebral spinal fluid as it should.

So to help fix that, he will have surgery next Tuesday to have a permanent ventricular-peritoneal shunt put in place.

&uot;We think he is going to feel better not having that pocket of fluid on his head and we really think that he will have better head control without the extra weight,&uot; Vicki Golden wrote. &uot;His general surgeon changed his PEG tube out today because he had gained so much weight that his tube was getting too tight. We also saw the nutritionist who thankfully changed the amount of calories he was getting. The amount of formula they had him on was causing too rapid of an increase in weight.&uot;

She said Matthew has been crying out more in the past few days and they remain hopeful that it is part of his &uot;waking up.&uot;

&uot;His neurosurgeon was glad to hear him crying out more, so we are taking it as a good sign,&uot; she said.

&uot;We aren’t getting much sleep because he is choosing to cry more during the wee hours of the night but we are not going to complain too loud.&uot;

Matthew may visit the Children’s Hospital, Scottish Rite Campus in Atlanta next week as well.&uot;

Managing Editor Jay Thomas contributed to this report.