Lausanne World Pulse – Christ’s Compassion for “The Least” and People with Disabilities
By Joni Eareckson Tada
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Disabled people in most parts of the world struggle to survive. Sadly, their needs are often overlooked or even ignored by the local church. |
In South America, a woman with cerebral palsy has been lying in bed for seven years in a back bedroom of a cinder-block home. In Africa, a young girl with Down syndrome is left on a river bank to perish because her parents believe she is a bad omen. In Western nations, disabled infants are sometimes starved to death before they are a week old. In Asia, a slum dweller with polio is told he must journey through eight reincarnations before he can be considered a “whole person.”
These are the people God cares passionately about. When you read the four Gospels, it is evident that Jesus has great compassion for people with disabilities and their families. Often, the Gospels show Jesus preferring to spend time with the “least” rather than with people of wealth, influence, power, or even those in the religious hierarchy. Whether it was the man born blind in John 9, or the individual with the withered hand in Luke 14, Jesus was “moved with compassion” whenever he encountered people with disabilities.
I sense this compassion every time I wake up in the morning. I have lived in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic for forty years—I broke my neck in a diving accident when I was very young. At first, I was bitter and angry toward God. But loving Christians reached out to my family and me, showing us the compassion of Jesus Christ. It was the love of Jesus which melted away my bitterness and gave me a new confidence in God’s purpose and plan in my life through this wheelchair. Today, many years later, I work with the Joni and Friends International Disability Center to fan the flames of Christ’s love to other disabled people around the world who need the help and hope of our Savior.
Who Are People with Disabilities?
Who are the world’s disabled? In 1996, the World Health Organization estimated that between ten and eleven percent of the world’s population has a disability. This works out to be up to 600 million people.1 There is a need, especially in less developed countries, for over twenty million wheelchairs.2 The world of disabled people is varied—in countries with rich resources, some people with disabilities may enjoy educational opportunities, be gainfully employed and live independently. But globally, this is the exception, not the rule.