A Fellowship Never Broken
God in His wisdom and grace chose to use me in the exact area that I thought limited me from missionary service.
As a young girl with mild cerebral palsy, my heart was broken from the pain of being physically different and trying to make friends at school. My life was consumed with speech therapy, physical therapy, and doing strenuous handwritten homework.
Then my family changed churches and I heard about Jesus being willing and able to come and walk with me throughout life. So, I asked Jesus to come into my life and live with me. Without hesitation, He fully accepted me, loved me completely, and quickly became the best friend and ally that I so desperately needed.
In that same time period, as a middle schooler, God placed a call on my heart to serve Him in missionary service.
I wanted to share Jesus with others who desperately need Him.
Twenty-five years later, following the Lord’s leading and His provision, I boarded a plane to Kenya with Amy, a teammate from Crisis Care Training International. Our destination was CURE International Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya.
For the past six years, while serving with Crisis Care Training International, I’ve written and prepared materials to teach cross-culture Christian workers about the holistic needs of children with disabilities. But before publishing the material, it needed to be tested overseas.
CURE International Hospital is a hospital specifically for children with disabilities. They provide medical care and corrective surgeries for children with disabilities around the world. While at CURE Kenya, Amy and I had the opportunity to go on a house visit with CURE’s pastors – David and Adam – to meet Michael, a recent CURE patient.
The journey to Michael’s house was the bumpiest two-hour car ride of my life! Upon arriving, I felt as if the Lord was walking me straight into a National Geographic picture. Little school-age children quickly circled around Amy and me, they immediately reached for our hands and cried, “Jambo” (Hello in Swahili). Their faces were priceless as I had the honor to shake their hands. Cloe, Michael ‘s mother, met and ushered us down earthen steps into an alley between small tin homes.
There in the middle of the narrow alley, Michael sat in his wheelchair. His face was motionless and drawn.
As we entered the family’s two room home, Cloe shared that Michael has Spina Bifida and was recovering from surgery. He is fifteen years old but only in the 1st grade. He is the oldest child in his family, but his two young sisters exceed him in grade level.
As we sat and read Scripture together, Michael told me that the Bible was his favorite book. I quickly smiled and said, “It was mine too at your age and still is.” Then I mentioned how hard it was for me to make friends both at school and at church. Michael shook his head “yes” and shared with us that the first church they went to in their village quickly told them never to come back. They were not welcomed due to Michael’s Spina Bifida. But thankfully a second village church fully welcomed them. God gave me the strength to look Michael deep in the eye and say, “Being rejected is very hard but I want you to know the Lord has never left me and He will never leave you!” Michael wanted to read one more Bible verse and closed by saying to us, “Be thankful.”
We said goodbye to Michael but Cloe, Michael’s mother, held tightly to my waist as we walked to our car, we both hated to say goodbye. Later in the week, Cloe phoned CURE and said our visit to their home was life changing! Given the chance again, I would have gone to Africa just to meet Michael and Cloe – it was a life changing visit for me as well.
So many times before, I had worried about how God could use me as a missionary with all my physical limitations. But the fact is that God in His wisdom and grace chose to use me in the exact area that I thought limited me from missionary service.
What I thought disqualified me for service actually qualified me to be God’s unique instrument.
In other words, God used the multifaceted array of pain from living with a physical disability to draw me deeper in communion with Him and to give me a personal understanding of pain; so that I am equipped to come aside others who are hurting.
Many days have passed since I met Michael in Africa and some of those days have been hard days for me. Since adulthood, I have also lived with a form of autoimmune arthritis. Often, I am really tired, or I do not have as much social interaction as I would like. But now, during moments that I am tempted to complain about my circumstances, I remember seeing Michael’s life circumstances and hearing his encouragement to be thankful. My heart’s posture quickly shifts – thank you, Lord and my eyes look towards Jesus!
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
2 Corinthian 1:3-4 (NIV)
Written By—Natalie Flickner
Natalie Flickner is Disability Developer and Trainer with Crisis Care Training International a ministry under Worldwide Evangelization for Christ (WEC)
Edited by David C. Deuel & Nathan G. John
Disability in Mission
Disability in MissionDisability in Mission: The Church’s Hidden Treasure outlines a radical change in approaches to missiology, missions, and praxis for the twenty-first-century global cultural context. It explores a pattern whereby God works powerfully in missions through disability and not in spite of it.
Pray with Us
Heavenly Father, we come before you requesting a miracle. Lord of disability, please change our hearts. We confess that we doubt or dismiss people with disabilities. But worse, we pridefully make them objects of pity when instead we should see your calling and giftedness in their lives.
Please use this book’s testimonies of your sufficient grace. May the many missionary lives lived faithfully with disability remind us that called and gifted people with disabilities are platforms for your enablement, showcases for your glory. Remind us that disability is your stage for shocking a watchful world.
We believe that you can and will heal all disabilities. But on your disability stage, display your power by changing our hearts.
