The Works of God

God has used certain couples in our lives to encourage us and build us up as a family to keep treasuring and trusting Jesus.  Jan and Mark Lacher are such a couple.  You might be familiar with Jan as she wrote the very helpful Creations of God Impacted by Disability that can found in our resource library.

Recently Jan wrote to me another reason why we praise God for Bethlehem and its leadership.  With her permission, I’ve included most of that email of a couple weeks ago below.

To give context, Jan and Mark attend Bethlehem’s North Campus with their four children.  Michael is their youngest and lives with significant disabilities. In addition to the time she has spent in hospitals with Michael, Jan has also spent time there as a nurse.

This past Sunday, Mark and I were talking to Jon Grano (Bethlehem’s Pastor for Operations) about handicap decals being placed on the floor in areas that could be designated for wheel chairs.  While the north site is extremely accessible, visibility is not great if you are in the middle of a back row in a wheel chair as (a congregant with a disability) was this past Sunday.

As Jon, Mark, and I were talking, Pastor John was leaving and walked down our aisle.  He stopped and addressed Michael as the “Governor” as we affectionately call him when he wears a suit and tie.  Then Pastor John told Michael how glad he was that he was here.  Of course, Michael is bouncing in his chair, unaware of PASTOR JOHN other than it is a voice that I think Michael recognizes from church and from it blaring on the computer at home.

So, all that to say, we are grateful God has given us a pastor who is not trite (I have heard many trite, wimpy prayers in the ICUs with patients).

Then last night, I was feeling rather badly at the Wednesday Night Connection as Michael seemed to not “fit” anywhere.  I ended up going to the prayer room and worked on continuing ed for work during that time.  As I came out, the team leader of second grade and the teacher of second grade both snagged me.

Previously, this team leader and I had met with Pastor Gil, the Family Discipleship Pastor at the North Site, to discuss integrating Michael in the second grade classroom on Wednesday.  The smaller classroom and Michael’s tolerance for stimulus and activity is better in the evening.

Both the team leader and the second grade teacher told me they wanted Michael in the classroom.  They thought they could do it without an aide, etc.  This team leader has gone overseas with the Wheels to the World mission trips with Bob Horning.  She professionally has worked with special needs kids.  I would feel very comfortable to have Michael in that classroom under her leadership.

I, again, had tears in my eyes–that they wanted “the Fox” to be in there.  So pending Gil’s approval, I will introduce those 18 kids to Michael next week….all this is possible because the leadership at the top has welcomed Michael into activities like prayer meetings, etc.  So we are blessed.

The leadership “at the top” only did so because they believe that God is sovereign in all things – including bringing little boys and girls with significant disabilities into this larger church family.

So, as you can see, we’re still struggling and probably always will struggle with figuring out what the right things to do are in this disability ministry.  We’ll keep doing one thing at a time, as God provides.

But feeling wanted, feeling the affections of the people of God, feeling their desire to do a hard thing out of love, sure make God look big and kind and strong, even to families who already know that God is sovereign over all things.  Like the Lacher family does.