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Two weeks after Randi and I committed ourselves to Rosemead, I
received a phone call from the executive director of a Youth for
Christ chapter in southern California. “Steve, how would you
like to come back to work for Youth for Christ?” Tony asked that day.
“Maybe,” I said, trying to sound noncommittal.
“How did you hear about our plans to move to California?”
“Scott Bellows told me about you. He gave
me your resume and said you would be the perfect candidate to direct
one of our new programs.”
“What kind of program?”
“We want to begin a ministry for physically
disabled teenagers and need someone to start it. Are you
interested?”
“Sure, I’m interested,” I said. “Let me
think about it.”
Randi and I were about to move 2500 miles away,
and my phone call from Tony seemed to confirm our decision for Randi
to attend Rosemead. I accepted his offer, began raising my
financial support, and a couple of days after moving to southern
California, showed up for my first day of work.
There’s a part of me that says that I should have
known better than to return to Youth for Christ. I had worked
for YFC right out of college and, for a number of reasons, had vowed
that I would never work with them again. My experience in Beloit
had left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had wanted nothing to do
with it or any other parachurch ministry. At the time, though, I
really hoped that the YFC organization in California would be far
different from the one in Wisconsin. And in some ways, it was
different. It had a larger staff, a different director, a bigger
budget, and more activities for kids to join. However, even with
all of the good things going for it, the program was not what I had
hoped that it would be.
The organization was massively in debt, a fact
explained away by the fiscal irresponsibility of the previous
director. By themselves, the past financial indiscretions didn’t
bother me, and I figured that the recent change in leadership would
take care of any lingering budgetary problems. However, what I
did not know was that the director and the board had little
involvement with the staff. In fact, it wasn’t until six months
after my arrival that I met one-on-one with the director. Even
then, our meeting had more to do with me personally and how I was
getting along with everyone at the office than it did with ministry
development. I don’t want to imply that his interest in my
personal life was necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that I
expected him to take a greater interest in my professional
responsibilities, especially now that I had been on staff for six
months.
The lack of organizational leadership was only
one of my problems at YFC. I didn’t know the first thing about
establishing a ministry for disabled teenagers, and my year-and-a-half
at this YFC proved it. That may sound strange coming from a man
who has been disabled all of his life, but despite what some people
might think, my cerebral palsy doesn’t make me an expert in
disability ministries.
I met with Herb Michael, a special education
teacher in Santa Ana, and asked if he had any ideas about where I
could start meeting kids.
“Why don’t you come over to the school, and I’ll
introduce you to our principal?” Herb offered. “Mrs. Carter
might know of something.”
“You would be a great role model for some of our high school kids,”
Mrs. Carter said later that week. “There are 160 students
between the ages of 3 and 21 in this school, and I know that many of
them would like to meet you.”
“When do I start?”
“How about tomorrow?” Herb suggested. “You
can begin in my class around 1:00.”
I drove down to Herb’s school, Carl Harvey School for the
Orthopedically Disabled, every Thursday afternoon for nearly two
years. During that time, I tutored students in math, English,
social studies, and science—anything, just to get my foot in the door
and meet kids.
Tom was a junior and spent a part of each day at
Carl Harvey and the rest of his day taking classes at Valley High
School, across the parking lot. Tom had cerebral palsy and, like
a lot of other kids his age, wanted to go to the prom.
“Why won’t anyone go with me?” he asked one day,
after telling me that he had invited several girls to the prom, only
to be turned down repeatedly.
“Maybe you’re asking the wrong girls?”
“Maybe,” he said, with the sound of frustration
in his voice. “I’ve already asked a lot of girls, though, and
they’ve all said no.”
“You’re already doing a lot better than I did in
high school,” I said, after telling him about what had happened
between Cindy Jackson and myself in the school cafeteria. “Don’t
give up. Sooner or later you’re going to find someone to date.
That’s what happened to me.” I didn’t have the heart to tell
him about Sandy Nolan’s search for her dream man.
One week I went to the school only to find out
that there had been a big argument a few days before between some of
the older kids over at the high school and Dennis Bradley, one of the
students at Carl Harvey.
“They were picking on me, Steve,” Dennis
complained, as soon as I walked into the room.
“Who?”
“Some kids over at the high school. They
held my wheelchair so I couldn’t go anywhere and then started teasing
me.”
That’s when I told Dennis the story of Bobby
Hogan, the kid who had picked on me during grade school.
“There’s going to come a day when you’ll look back and laugh at the
people who teased you this week,” I told him. “You’re going to
make something out of your life. No amount of teasing will
change that.”
Dennis got the biggest kick out of hearing about
Bobby. “Steve!” he would say every week for about a month.
“Tell me the story of when you and Bobby were in grade school.”
“I just told you that story a few days ago.
Why do you want to hear it again?”
Dennis would look up at me from his chair and,
with a big grin across his face, say, “Because I like it.”
I’m one who believes that a great deal of
ministry comes out of just spending time with people. In fact,
some of the greatest opportunities I’ve ever had in ministry have
come from simply making myself available to people. That’s why
I decided to begin a weekend club program for a couple of the
teenagers from Carl Harvey, a few months after I first started
visiting there. Every Saturday morning, I drove down to Orange
County, picked up the kids, and brought them to the house of one of
the students to talk about everything from school, to dating, to
having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I remember one girl in particular. Becky
Sanders had cerebral palsy and, for some reason, never said much when
I was around. She always answered my questions with two- or
three-word sentences and never volunteered anything without being
asked. However, Amy Bleam, one of my student volunteers from
Biola University, had the ability to bring Becky out of her shell, and
when the two of them were together, Becky became a different person.
A group of us went to the park one afternoon.
“That looks like fun,” Amy said, eyeing the monkey bars a few feet
away. That was all the encouragement Becky needed, and before
another word was said, we were making our way to the other side of the
park. It took three people to help Becky climb up those bars—two
to support her balance and one to position her feet. Becky made
it to the top, and the look on her face told us that she was having
the time of her life.
I discovered the significance of that afternoon a
few days later. “Did you know that Saturday was the first time
Becky had ever played on monkey bars?” Amy asked, on our way over to
Carl Harvey.
“It’s amazing how much we take for granted,” I
said, knowing how some kids with disabilities are sheltered.
“Who would have guessed that a simple thing like going to the park
would have made such an impact on Becky. She’ll remember that
day for the rest of her life.”
Despite the way that God blessed my time with the
small group of kids that showed up on Saturday mornings, I grew
discouraged during the course of that first year at this YFC, both by
the lack of support that I received from our executive director and by
my own lack of experience. That’s when I began seeking the
advice of people who knew more than I did about disability ministries.
Of all the people I talked with, Bob Pietsch was
the most helpful. Bob had been a Presbyterian minister for most
of his life before founding an organization called ADD (Advocates with
people who are Developmentally Disabled). Bob’s own son had
been developmentally disabled, and ADD was born out of Bob’s desire to
see churches include Larry and other people with developmental
disabilities into their ministry.
Bob inspired me. He had successfully taken
the events of his own life—the birth, disability, and death of his son
Larry—and turned them into opportunities for ministry. After
seeing the impact that Bob had on area churches in helping them
develop ministries with disabled people, I knew I wanted to do the
same thing. I could use my cerebral palsy as a starting point
for ministry and, by doing so, could impact a lot of people with the
love and grace of Jesus Christ.
Bob affirmed my dream of one day starting a
ministry independent of any other organization. He reminded me
that if God was really behind what I was doing, then I would somehow
find a way to make it happen. “Feel free to talk to me any time
you want,” Bob said. That was good news, especially since I was
about to embark on one of the biggest undertakings of my life.
After what amounted to a little over a year of
working at the southern California YFC, I decided to leave. I
went to the library and read everything that I could find about how to
start a nonprofit organization. I typed out the bylaws and
articles of incorporation, mailed in the application, and waited
three months before receiving approval from the California Secretary
of State to begin operation.
Golden Clay Ministries was born out of a
conviction that every person, regardless of racial background,
ethnicity, gender, socio-economic level, or physical and mental
limitations, has been created in the image of God.
Unfortunately, that image has been tarnished by sin and can only be
restored by Jesus Christ. He alone brings value to our lives.
My worth doesn’t come from being able to walk straight, because I
can’t. My worth doesn’t come from being able to hold a glass of
water without spilling it, because I can’t do that either. My
worth comes from one thing and one thing alone—knowing Jesus Christ.
He is the one who takes the ugliness of my life and transforms me from
a broken, clay vessel into a creature of infinite worth.
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