
Rise Up and Walk
Field Notes: Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly,
The Jan. 12 earthquake that struck
While the Fuller center focuses like a laser on the issue of housing, we are not unaware of the need for collaborations in Haiti with programs addressing other issues like clean water, education, jobs and everything that is required to bring renewal to a community. MSN reported, "The (Haiti Earthquake) incident may represent the largest-ever loss of limbs in a single natural disaster."
The medical needs in
Charles Ray and Harry Rowland of the CBF invited me to represent The Fuller Center at a workshop on the disaster response in
Incredibly, that is the exact same cost of the wooden legs Millard and Linda Fuller were purchasing for people in Mbandaka in October of 1973! Millard wrote about their wooden-leg ministry in a chapter he titled “Rise Up and Walk” in his book Bokotola.
The ministry was launched in response to a ritual that occurred every Friday in Mbandaka: “begging day.” Millard and Linda were confronted by three men who each only had one leg and were confined to a life of begging. Millard studied the situation and asked if the men would like to have wooden legs. They all enthusiastically said, “Yes!” Millard told them that his help would come with a condition. “If I help you get a wooden leg, there will be no more handouts. You’ll have to find a job. Do you want to do that? Will you be willing to give up begging and go to work if you get a new wooden leg?”
“Yes. Yes!” they each replied.
Registered Nurse Nancy and husband Dr. Stephen James head up the Holistic Health Ministries in
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