Hi, friends, this is Joni Eareckson Tada, and welcome to Joni and Friends! Thanks so much for letting me park my wheelchair next to you for these couple of minutes, and if I could actually do that, I’d ask you to hold my hand – I wouldn’t be able to feel it, but it always looks good, doesn’t it? We’d hold hands and I’d ask you to pray with me about our Wheels for the World team heading out to Peru. We’ve got Bibles, we’ve got wheelchairs; we’re doing disability ministry training in villages up in the mountains, and deep in the jungle. And I’m asking you right now if you’ll please pray with me that the hearts of lots and lots of hurting people will be opened to the Gospel. Because if all we do is distribute wheelchairs, then, hey, it’s not ministry that counts for eternity. We need prayer to pave the way…
Like what happened in Cuba. I’m thinking of the story of Jesus, who’s not only paralyzed, but has some brain damage, too. His father brought Jesus, his 46-year-old son, to our Wheels for the World distribution – and that day, October 22nd, just happened to be his birthday! When Jesus received his wheelchair and Bible it was a pretty nifty birthday gift for him, and while he was being fitted for his new chair, his dad told us what happened the day Jesus was born. Now get this: he was born in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I don’t know how many of you remember that, but it was when our country went on red alert, President Kennedy went on TV, and Americans everywhere braced themselves for an all-out nuclear attack launched from Cuba. That’s what happened that day in America…
But on October 22nd in Cuba, they were told that the Americans were going to bomb them. The Cuban government put out an alert and it was a mad rush to evacuate many buildings, including hospitals. At that very moment in a hospital in Havana, Jesus was in the process of being born. All the nurses had left the floor, but the mother of this tiny infant just couldn’t leave. So, as his mother delivered him in the panic of evacuation with no one to assist, Jesus, this tiny infant, fell to the floor and landed on his head – that’s what caused him to be brain damaged. You can imagine the hurt and resentment Jesus’ mother and father harbored against Americans ever since then…
But there we were, over 46 years later – 15 of us Americans – presenting Jesus and his mother and father with a new wheelchair, as well as the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ: the Gospel which that day brought healing, help, and hope to this little Cuban family. Jesus was so excited and his father, in tears, said to us, “Now I will be able to take my son outside for walks in his wheelchair.” You know… a nuclear disaster was not only averted years ago in October; a disaster of another sort was averted in this family as they were rescued out of spiritual darkness. Like Psalm 57:1 says, “Have mercy on me, O God… I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.” That is a disaster that’s been changed into a story of God’s love and forgiveness. So would you please pray with me today that the hearts of disabled people not only in Cuba but in Peru will be opened to Christ, just like what happened to Jesus? Oh, and if you’d like to see a photo of my friend Jesus, then just click on our radio page at joniandfriends.org. And thank you for praying! ’Till next time, may God bless you, just like he’s blessed thousands through Wheels for the World.
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JONI AND FRIENDS
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