If you don’t know Jack, then before you read this blog…go back to all the blogs that are about jack…watch his videos, read the blogs and then come back here and read this…and if you do the same thing reading as i am doing while i am writing, you are gonna need some tissue.(There are a number of them with Jack’s name on them, so this will take a while…but you have nothing at all that will be any better for you than this.)
Last Friday Night, we had our annual fund raiser called Night for Africa. We showed the two videos posted on the earlier this summer about Jack. Then Jack came to the stage. He was kinda quiet at first.
He sat across the table from me on a huge stage in front of 2500 people. He spoke of how thankful he was for all the people who had blessed him and who had helped him to get his arms. As i started to walk with him off the stage he whispered (into my mic) which wasn’t then really a whisper. Mr. Lanny may i say something else? I was a bit nervous but what was I going to say? Sure Jack, say anything you want. I wish i had it recorded, because i won’t do it justice here. But it went something like this. Imagine if you will this monologue in a very broken Kenyan accent spoken from a young man with two artificial arms, who has grown up in the slums with almost no education, but with a beautiful smile and a heart as big as the globe.
“In the book of Joshua, there were men who surrounded a city and they obeyed God and screamed and yelled and made enough noise to bring down the walls of the city of Jericho. There is hunger and poverty and AIDS and death in my country and i would like you to stand and make noise and let it be loud enough that your very voices in this place would begin to ring out loudly and bring down the walls of hunger…and poverty…and disease….and death….and when those walls come down we will have hope. Will you stand with me now and shout?”
Holy Cow (my words) 2500 people stood to their feet and began to shout and i stood on that stage and watched a young man who just months before had been orphaned and trying to figure out how to pick up scraps of food outside of restaurants in Nairobi with no arms to accomplish it….and I saw God’s grace and mercy pouring down on this young man as he valiantly lifted his prosthetic arms to proclaim that we as a people can be used by God to bring down the walls that destroy us.!!!
That, my friends, was combined with the spirit of God working through Jeff Foxworthy, and then the Daraja Children’s Choir to show us the smiles and songs and beautiful face and wonders of God.
Add to that…TONIGHT…
At about seven thirty this evening, most of us were preparing to watch the debates which would potentially tell us the fate of our nation ( to a degree). But about 30 of us were gathered around a swimming pool watching a story with so much more drama, so much more spirit, so much more of the things that make life what it is. I stood beside Jack and grabbed his upper arm ( he wasn’t wearing his prosthetics) and we walked out into a pool together. We laughed because it was cold. We joked because i am old and might not pull him back up in a minute especially since he had nothing to hold on to me with …so it would be all me. I mentioned the story of Mephibosheth in the Bible, where for so long this young crippled boy ran away from David because he thought David would punish him. He wasn’t aware that David was pursuing him to show him his love. Jack had believed for a while that God had punished him but …like Mephibosheth, Jack has learned that God wants jack to sit at the Kings table and eat the kings food…Just as David wished that for Mephibosheth. Becuase He loved him and wants the best for him. God loves jack and wants the best for him and has shown him that in the past few months. And then in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, i slowly brought jack down into the water, held him for a sec,
and raised him back out. His small arms were raised and his smile beamed across his face. for a moment i just stood there thanking God for letting me right there in the center of that cold pool, holding on to a man whom God was holding on to.
Many of the people who entered into Jacks life were there to watch. The man who first heard of him and said he would like to give money to get Jack some arms. The Dr of Prosthetics, who formed Jacks arms and got them to fit. The man who takes care of Jack while he is here. The people who donated special funds and houses and time and energy to take care of Jack while he was here. It was a powerful night.
A young man from the streets of Kenya today professed his faith in Jesus in front of 30 people in a swimming pool in Alpharetta GA. There is a chance that that particular incident will affect more lives than either of the candidates we watched debate tonight. He is going back to his country on Monday.
His whole life is in front of him. Just the way Billy Graham’s life was in front of him when he was 25.
He lives in a starving nation of 32 million people. Maybe he or someone he touches will set his world on fire and help to men to see the real issues. Or maybe, watching him tonight, will help US to see the real issues…and not worry so much about the ones we heard on the Fox network tonight.
Think about that.
