When a small private plane carrying Stephanie Nielson, a young mother who lives in Mesa, AZ, crashed three weeks ago leaving her in critical condition, letters and e-mails of prayers poured in from all over the country.

The reason why so many people were sharing in this family’s mourning?

They were followers of the young mom’s blog, the NieNie Dialogues.

Christian and Stephanie Nielson, parents of four young children, were critically injured when their private plane crashed on August 16 in eastern Arizona. A flight instructor on the plane, Doug Kinnear, died the next day. Christian suffers burns on more than 30 percent of his body. Stephanie’s burns cover more than 80 percent of her body. 

Since the crash, the family has realized the influence of Nielson’s blogging.

Nielson started the blog in 2005, while living on the East Coast, as a way to stay connected to family. On the site she wrote upbeat dispatches about marriage, decorating, entertaining and parenting.

Since the accident, readership of the blog, which a sister has been updating, has spiked from about 1,000 visitors a day to as many as 20,000. Also since the accident, bloggers have joined with Nielson’s family to organize more than 350 online auctions on their sites. As they sell bridesmaid dresses and baby shoes, the fundraiser may surpass $100,000, siblings told The New York Times.

"It’s a wonderful feeling to know there are so many people working and remembering them in their prayers," Stephanie’s mother-in-law Mary Nielson told Pheonix’s East Valley Tribune. "It makes you feel good. It’s a good world."

According to EastValleyTribune.com, hundreds of letters, gifts and decorations arrived at the couple’s hospital room, their home in Mesa and a post office box set up by Stephanie’s sister in Utah.

The couple’s children — Claire, 6; Jane, 5; Oliver, 3; and Nicholas, 23 months — have only a dim knowledge of the accident, Courtney Kendrick, one of Stephanie’s sisters, told the Times.

"They know that their mommy and daddy are in the hospital and look like mummies," Kendrick said.