By
Joni Eareckson Tada
Each
issue of CCPD News carries a column by Joni Eareckson
Tada.
There's
nothing like watching boys at play. Especially a six and seven-year-old.
It happened at one of this year's JAF
Ministries Family Retreats which we hold for disabled
children, adults, and family members. We rely on able-bodied
families to come and volunteer - this usually means that scores
of healthy boys and girls are paired up with children in wheelchairs
or walkers. It makes for great disability awareness.
That's
what happened to Matthew and Stephen. Along with their mom
and dad, they rolled up their sleeves and pitched in, helping
to push wheelchairs, carry lunch trays, and play games with
kids with crutches and white canes. The boys had a blast.
Weeks
after the retreat was over, Matthew received a Lego City for
his birthday. Legos are those little multicolored plastic
blocks that snap together. A kid can build entire cities and
forts out of these colorful doodads.
Their
father, Jim, relayed to me how much he enjoyed sitting on
the couch and watching Matthew and Stephen put together a
cowboy and Indian fort. The boys snapped together walls and
watch towers as well as a group of tepees situated beyond
the fort. Midway through construction, Jim noticed that his
sons were engrossed in constructing the gate for the fort.
"What's that?" he pointed to an odd conglomeration
of blocks.
"It's
a ramp," they replied. "it's there so that people
in wheelchairs can get in the Fort." Jim sat back and
watched Matthew and Stephen dismantle the Lego style trucks
they had made earlier. The boys started snapping together
little wheelchairs with square wheels. (Square?! I guess it's
the thought that counts.)
The
cowboys didn't have horses. They were all riding wheelchairs.
Even the Indians. Cool! The boys constructed ramps everywhere.
To the general store and the livery stable. Even going into
the jail. (I suppose that shows disabled people are sinners,
too.) "Did you tell your boys to do that?" I needled
Jim.
"No
way," he replied. "I never encouraged them to make
that cowboy fort handicap accessible. They came up with that
idea themselves. It just came naturally."
I
laughed out loud, but my heart was warmed. I thought back
to their fun-filled week at our Family Retreat. A little bit
of disability awareness has taken Matthew and Stephen a long
way. These little fellows are doing what children one day
everywhere may be doing. Today's boys and girls will grow
up to be tomorrow's adults who look at a wheelchair and think,
"Hey, I know people in chairs. And I want to create a
world that will make it easier for them to get around. It
will be a world where folks come up with the idea of access
all by themselves. It won't be a world of "us" and
"them," but a world where it just "comes naturally"
to put in a ramp, widen a door, or open a heart.
It
will be a great world when it happens, and Matthew and Stephen
are paving the way.
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