Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and I have a friend for you to meet. Bob Brooks, welcome to "Joni and Friends".
Bob: Thank you. It’s an honor being here.
Joni: I should call you Sheriff Bob because for 37 years you served in law enforcement here in southern California and gained much respect from people in the community. But you’ve served other ways as well—like on our “Wheels for the World” teams. Bob, how did you get interested in helping us deliver wheelchairs and Bibles?
Bob: Well, it’s an unusual beginning. There was a friend that worked for Wheels for the World here at Joni and Friends that went to church with us and at the end of a service, without any introduction, he said “I’m going to Peru this year, and I want you to come with me as a mechanic.” I have no mechanical ability and I am very deliberative and I don’t make quick decisions, and ‘yes’ came out of my mouth before I even knew what was happening. I hadn’t talked with my wife yet, but I knew it was right and I thought, “I’ll probably do this once.” And we ended up going to Lima and spending a week there and then going to Arequipa and the first day I dealt with a young girl who was about 10 or 11, and she had cerebral palsy and her body was all contorted. Her face was in her lap because she couldn’t hold her torso up. After about three or four hours of working on the chair we had her sitting upright. Her face was kind of frozen in a smile and I thought that was probably just her muscle pattern and no response from her at all. At the very end when her parents thanked me for the chair that we provided for her, the mother put her ear next to the little girl’s mouth and said, “She wants you to know she loves you.” That was it! For my wife and I we have been there for 10 years now—both going to Peru and Haiti with “Joni and Friends.” It has been one of the most wonderful experiences of our life.
Joni: Well, it’s those stories, like the one you just described, that’s what really catches people’s hearts when they serve with us at “Wheels for the World”. What has God taught you through your service because you have written some of this down in a new book, right?
Bob: Well, I have and my initial response I think was driven out of a sense of duty – Jesus modeled the compassion for the poor and those in physical need. He commanded us to go into all the world and make disciples, so I knew I should do something like that and I’ve known it for years, and that is what I expected I was doing. I was checking off that box of the Christian life, but what I found was an introduction to a life of adventure and joy that I had never experienced in any other way, and that experience has been one of the greatest things that my wife and I have been able to share. It’s no longer a duty. Every year we are looking forward to it. We are recruiting other people. We’ve made friends that we love in foreign countries. The team members that we have gone with have become family to us.
Joni: Well, like I said you have written a lot of this down in a new book that you call “Declarations”. Tell us a little bit about that.
Bob: Well, it’s the product of a study that I did of the Apostle Paul’s book to the Philippians, which basically were his last written words. He didn’t know if he was going to trial before Nero or if he would live through the process. There is real importance to those last words and so out of his declarations I put together personal declarations to kind of be the foundation for my personal and professional career and I attribute much of my success to that, and I have shared it with other people over the years. So I’ve really had a sense that when I had time I needed to sit down, write those out so that I could share them with other people and include inspirational stories like yours to give people hope both inspiring leaders and those who are dealing with their own hardships.
Joni: Well, I think people are really listening-up when you speak because you have been in law enforcement. You describe Christian service as a joy and adventure—I love that. And friends, for all the years in law enforcement and with “Wheels for the World”, Bob’s been guided by these 11 declarations from the pages of Philippians. You can find out more about this new book. Just visit us at joniandfriends.org, or at amazon.com. Again, it’s called Declarations: Living and Leading ABOVE Your Circumstances. I like that. That’s the way I live, Bob.
Bob: That’s right!
Joni: Well, thanks and I highly recommend this book for anyone listening.
© Joni and Friends, 2013
Compliments of Joni and Friends
PO Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376