Stories of Grace

God Uses Wheelchair Ramp to Open the Door

Posted by Carol Layton in category Touched by Grace on May 04, 2012

Paul Langston, Director of Missions for the Eastern Baptist Association coordinated the construction of many of the 327 wheelchair ramps built on April 28, 2012 as part of Rampin’ Up!  A few days after the event, we received this powerful story from Paul. It's a beautiful testimony of grace and it also shows the Lord's appreciation of a well-placed parable.

As we were finishing our second ramp of the day, Bryan Jackson who serves as Youth Minister at Mintz Baptist Church near Roseboro, came to help our team finish up. The 30-foot straight ramp was nearly complete and all that was left to do was to nail down a few more decking boards, install the handrails, and pour the cement pad at the end. 

As Bryan poured the cement mix into a wheelbarrow and hooked up a garden hose to the faucet in the rear of the house, about six neighborhood children started to gather. They had been nearby, but the commotion of the building didn't really entice them like the opportunity to make a good mud mess!  Bryan took the hose, added some water to the dry Sakrete mix, and started to share the Gospel. 

His parable revolved around the way Sakrete mix is a fairly useless powder until water is added—not any good at all to walk on. But the water transformed the powder as it was poured out and mixed in. All of the construction came to a halt as we all watched, listened and prayed. 

The children were full of questions and chased a few rabbits which Bryan tracked down and brought back to the central story. As the hoe moved through the mix combining the water and the powder, Bryan compared that with how God pours His Spirit out on us and how the Holy spirit can mix all through us and combine with us until you have something totally new and different from the person who does not have Christ in them. All eyes were fixed on the powder that had turned to mud—the mud that everyone knew would be rock-solid concrete when it dried in a few hours. 

When Bryan told the children that through Jesus Christ their lives could be solid to withstand all of the storms and trampling of life and to endure forever, four children responded by praying to surrender their lives to Christ. One wheelchair ramp that removed a physical obstacle for a woman in need was also used by God to open the door to life for four children.