Interview With Rick Easton

             AL:  Here at Joni and Friends we are in the middle of our season of Family Retreats and you can be sure that Joni Eareckson Tada is pretty excited that 20 of our retreats are filling up fast with disabled people and their families.  Now, the last time Joni participated in a retreat, she cornered her friend Rick Easton who serves on the leadership team at our Family Retreat in Central California.  Let's listen in...

            JONI:  "Rick, I want to ask you a question.  You've got cerebral palsy, had it all your life. What importance has God's Word played in your life and in dealing with your disability?" 

            RICK:  The Word of God applies in so many ways that it answers three fundamental identity questions that every single person deals with even if they understand them or not and that is: Where did I come from?  Why am I here?  Where am I going?

            JONI:  I love that!  Where did I come from?  Why am I here?  And where am I going?  Well, Rick, you have cerebral palsy as our friend can tell from listening.  How has God answered those questions in your life?

            RICK:  Over and over, Joni.  At pivotal times in my life He has shown Himself to me.  I am so very grateful it would take much too long that we have now to go into detail, but He has from school all the way into adult life he has been so faithful and in central California opening up an office in Fresno, California was a real answer to prayer for me.  

            JONI:  Well I know because you do a lot of the training in churches in central California helping them embrace people with disabilities.  You have answered the questions where did you come from and where you are.  Where are you going, Rick Easton?

            RICK:  Because I have placed my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I am assured that one day, praise the Lord, we're going to leave this earth and go to the place where there will be no more disability, no more problems.  That's the hope of all of us who know the Lord Jesus.

            JONI:  That's the hope of me to, and I'm not crying about my disability down here on earth.  I know you are not either.  I always see you smiling, Rick Easton.  It's nice to be able to smile not in spite of our disabilities here on earth, but because of them.  Because of God's power can show up best in our weakness, right?

            RICK:  Yes!

            JONI:  Oh, Al, thanks for playing those brief comments from my friend, Rick.  When you hear somebody like him-sitting in his wheelchair with cerebral palsy-and you hear him describe how important, how key the Word of God is, you can see why we take such great pains to get folks with disabilities into the Bible who come to our Family Retreats. 

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