Standing With Hope

Because with Jesus I can take it all as Him I know I can stand No matter what may come my way My life is in your hands My life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life, my life is in your hands My life is in your hands My life is in your hands Your life is in your hands Your life is in your hands Your life is in your hands Your life is in your hands Your life is in your hands laying there in bed. She's got a dressing and a cast still on her newly amputated leg. The other leg was, you know, been amputated four years early, so it was all healed up. But she's laying there without her prosthesis on, and she looked over at me, hands are still raised. She said, I know what I'm going to do. I was a little bit startled, and I said, well, what would that be, dear? You know? Our whole life is a bit of a I Love Lucy episode, you know?

Gracie, you got a lot of splay to do. And I was a bit startled. She said, we're going to put legs on people and tell them about Jesus. And I said, well, do you suppose we could get out of the hospital first?

And that's a nice thought. Why don't you take another hit of morphine there, dear? And she wasn't on morphine, and she was like, no, this is what we're going to do. And she persisted, and we did this.

We set things in motion. I told her, and then we met with some folks at Johnny and Friends with their program, Wheels for the World, and they provide wheelchairs all over the world, refurbished wheelchairs. And they said, well, look, if you're going to do this, you need to start in Ghana, because if you can make it work there, you can make it work anywhere. And I looked at them, and I said, well, I'm not taking Gracie to Africa.

You know, we dealt with infections with her and everything else, so I'm not doing this. And I kept repeating that. As we got on the plane, we left Nashville, went to Memphis, got a plane from Memphis to Amsterdam. And I'm in the airport at Memphis. I'm getting on the plane in Memphis, and I'm getting ready to go to Amsterdam, then go down to Accra. And the whole time I'm saying, I'm not going to Africa.

I'm not taking Gracie to Africa. I'm on the plane, and I'm like, this was surreal. And we've been going back ever since. And I'm trying to get there this summer.

If I can get her a little further down the road, I've got a prosthetist that works with her right now on her legs. And he said he'd like to go over there with us. And I haven't been in some time because she's been so sick and COVID and everything else.

I think it's about time I go back over there. And she said, she's going. I said, I didn't say, no, I'm not taking you to Africa, because I learned my lesson with that. But I did say, hey, why don't you get a little stronger first? Let me go over there first, and let's just take this a little bit step at a time here.

So I told her, let's just hold off. Her enthusiasm knows no bounds, but her enthusiasm has helped a lot of people walk. We have a online newsletter that goes out from Standing With Hope, and I would encourage you to go out to our website and sign up for it. Go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com.

You can sign up for it there. This month, we're featuring a patient who just received a leg. He's a young 14-year-old boy, and he was born with a congenital limb defect. And we put an above-knee leg on him. His name is Eqow, E-Q-O-W. And the picture I have of him is standing there next to Moses, who is Moses Coho, and he's the clinic director for the National Prosthetic and Orthotic Center there in Accra, part of Ghana Health Service.

And we partnered with him, we have now for 19 years. He built this leg for this young boy who's got this big smile on his face, and they're standing on a concrete ramp. It's really important to note this because a team from Johnny and Friends built that ramp. When we first arrived there at this clinic, it was very disheveled, and there were two pieces of lumber stretched across a drainage ditch, and that's how people with disabilities got into this clinic. Missing legs, I got a picture of a lady carrying her husband on her back. He's missing a leg, and she's going up these rickety pieces of board.

There's no other way to get to the clinic. And Johnny and Friends built that concrete ramp, and Moses is standing there. And then right next to it, you see a little bit of the flowers in the picture. This is why it meant so much to me because one of our prosthetists who went with us many times, he passed away, his name was Craig, and he passed away just before we were going on a trip. Some years ago, his wife sent over some of his ashes, and we had a service there, and they are buried right there by this beautiful, I don't know the type of bush, tree, there's beautiful blooms on it, and it's right there in the little alcove of the clinic.

Craig loved being there so much. We have such a lengthy history there, and it's such a joy to do this. I've got a bunch of supplies that I'm getting ready to send over. And if you want to help us with this, let me tell you what we're doing. We're sending over rolls of carbon fiber. And what we do with this is, it's like a tube, like a tube sock, but you cut it in pieces that you need to put over the socket that you're making for that patient, and it reinforces it so it can be lightweight, but incredibly durable, and it's kevlar, basically. And we're sending over different sizes that you do one for above knee, and you would do one for below knee. And as you can imagine, you need a little bit more for the above knee, but the below knee ones, this one roll alone, I think we can make, I'd have to get Moses to help me do the math, don't hold me to this, but I think we make just 50 legs alone just with that roll.

I'll get back to you on if I'm wrong on that with the math, but if you want to help with that, we'd welcome it. We also buy resin. We can get resin locally down in Ghana. We used to buy it by the 55 gallon drum here in the States, then ship it over, but it was hazardous material. It was very cumbersome to do, but now there's a resin distributor.

They can get it there, and we fund it. We pay for it because that's what they use to help make the socket. And then we have limbs that are recycled. You can go out to the website again and donate a used limb. And then what happens, it goes to a prison down in Arizona run by friends of ours at CoreCivic, and inmates volunteer to disassemble these legs for us so that we can use the parts, like the adapters to screw the feet. So this little boy, he's got a brand new socket, and the knee that he's using is recycled. The pylon that connects the knee to the foot, recycled, the foot is recycled. So if he has a problem with the foot, we just put another foot on him. If he has a problem with the knee, we get him another knee.

But the socket is custom fitted to him. And then we also provide them hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prosthetic socks and liners and sleeve. Gracie wears the same system. You put a silicone or gel liner over the amputated limb, put that into the socket, and then you have a sleeve that goes from the socket over the liner into the skin of the thigh, and that suction holds it on there. So you don't have to wear a belt with your prosthesis. When Gracie first became an amputee back in 91, her first leg, she had a belt around her knee.

Well, they don't do that anymore. And these suspension sleeves, they're called, are wonderful. And we provide that as well. So these are things that we're doing at Standing With Hope. Standing With Hope is the ministry that Gracie envisioned that day in the hospital with her hands lifted up. She said, I know what I'm gonna do. That was what she envisioned. And then it's gone on to include this ministry now to caregivers.

And so we have two program areas. It's for the wounded and those who care for them. And if you wanna be a part of that, go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com.

You can see where you can give to Standing With Hope through online, or you can donate by mail, whatever you wanna do. Or find the way to donate a limb. If you know somebody that had a family member that was an amputee that they passed away, we'll take that leg. We'll take the arm. We don't do a lot of arms, but we do some. And we always need the parts. If you know a prosthetist, you can ask them if they got extra stuff, and we'll take it. We'll have it picked up right from their prosthetic office and shipped over to Ghana.

I've got a great shipping group that helps us with all this stuff out of Nashville, and they're just wonderful. So it's a great work that started with Gracie being in a hospital bed. That's extraordinary to me, that God reaches into all these things in our life that we look at as horrific tragedies, and he brings out something that gives him glory because he has decreed it. And that is hope for the caregiver. Follow us on all our social media platforms. We look forward to every time with you. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is hope for the caregiver. We'll see you next time.