Something miraculous, something incredible and utterly wonderful happened on our recent Wheels for the World outreach into Peru.
It all started when on a hot, dusty Sunday Pastor Miguel Diaz paid a visit to an elderly gentleman who lived about an hour away from him (even further up in the high mountains) from the tiny village of Padregal, where Pastor Diaz had recently planted a church. The pastor’s goal was to invite an old man up in that village to come and receive a cane at our Wheels for the World distribution the following week in Arequipa, just two hours down the mountainside, but what Pastor Diaz discovered changed the course of his ministry forever.
Pastor Diaz said that, “During our visit, I heard a sound from the back room in the little home.” That’s when elderly may explained, ‘That is Jorge, my 17-year-old grandson. He is all twisted, but would you like to see him?’ Profoundly disabled he was, Jorge’s frail body was laying there on a makeshift bed in a dark, windowless room. He could not move and so Jorge lived his life within these mud walls, more isolated than any prison cell, more hopeless than any life sentence.
Heartbroken he was. Pastor Diaz arranged for Jorge to be lifted out of bed, taken out of that house, brought down the mountain side, and carried to our Wheels for the World distribution the following week. Hours of meticulous measurements by our physical therapist followed. Finally, at six in the evening Jorge was lifted into his customized wheelchair. The team gathered in a circle and Pastor Diaz was asked to pray. Tears were flowing as he witnessed the final results of his mission to rescue Jorge.
That’s when Pastor Diaz said, “Now that we have found this young man, we will do whatever it takes. If the family cannot come to church, we will go to them. We will study the Bible in their home together. God has now been made visible to through the wheelchairs given from Joni and Friends. There is a new spirit in this family’s heart and a new love. How can we do any less?”
As Jorge wheeled out into the evening sunset, almost like a holy hush descended. Without a word, we all knew we had witnessed a miracle: one more life snatched from the clutches of darkness and brought, with joy, into the brilliance of His marvelous light; a future and a hope birthed by obedience to the cry of the Good Shepherd to “go out into the streets and compel them to come in.”
For Pastor Diaz, a new ministry was born that day because he asked, “How many more like Jorge await us out there?” Well, he purposed that day that he would go and find them.
Friend, you can help us reach disabled kids like Jorge, too – pray for us, would you? We’re heading to Ghana tomorrow with 400 wheelchairs and Bibles… because there are a lot of “Jorges” out there, injured and maimed, lying in dark back bedrooms that need to be brought out into the light, into the fold of the fellowship of Christ.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
© Joni and Friends