Over the next few weeks we will be sharing various thoughts from a TEF presentation given at Community Bible Church Sunriver in August of last year. Our intent is to share various aspects of the heart of TEF’s ministry. We trust you will be blessed by them.
This first post will focus on Justin and Tamara Reimer and how they became involved in special needs ministry and recognized God’s call on their lives.
“A little after 5AM on June 18th, 1997 a beautiful boy was born to a young couple. The ecstatic mother not quite 21 years of age and the overjoyed father nearly 22.
All of the standard faire of excitement, anxiety and deep thankfulness to God was there. Tears of joy, the warm embrace, the quiet moment only broken by the soft cooing of this new life.
There was a difference in this scene as at 45 minutes old this baby boy would need to be transported to Neonatal ICU due to complications related to his 4 weeks prematurity. As the midwife made ready for the departure she came to the side of these parents and spoke words that would change this couples life.
The words that would create a new theological perspective for them. Words that would be God’s calling on their lives. Sweet words to the soul that knows Christ. Blessed words to the child of an Almighty, Supreme and Sovereign Lord. Words that, for those who don’t know Jesus, bring pain, guilt, shame and tragedy.
These words came in a peaceful setting in the midst of the afterglow of birth and new life.
“Justin, Tamara”, she said, looking at us both sweetly and hating to be the messenger of what to her – not knowing Christ – were like poison.
“Elisha has Down Syndrome.”
Tears, prayer, hugs, kisses…”Wow! What do we do?”. “Lord, thank you!”.
This response was different than most. Our tears were tears of thankfulness but also of being humbled to think that of all the people on this planet whom the Lord could have chosen to trust and enable with such a special blessing…he chose us!
Tamara grew up with Andy, a boy with Down Syndrome. She had also gone through high school aiding in special education classes and was ultimately a special education major in college. She had seen the unhappy families and parents who mistreated these special blessings, and shared her heart with the Lord that if he were to trust her with the care of a special needs child she would gladly do it. Sovereign preparation and cultivation.
Our response was not in questions of what we had done wrong but in how our heavenly Father saw fit to make us a steward of such a special blessing, a unique blessing. We had no thoughts of guilt, shame or blame. In Christ alone we had been prepared and ordained to receive this for His glory! Thank you, Jesus! How sweet and fitting the Hebrew meaning of Elisha, “God is my salvation”.
That night as we started to settle in in our room we turned to the Word where for the first time we were really struck by John 9.
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was no that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
This passage stood out in our minds. Not for the concern of sin but for our call to have “the works of God displayed” in our child. We were sure we were headed to Russia as missionaries, but my mother said shortly after we received Elisha’s diagnosis, “The Lord brought the mission field to you.”
There it was we were to bring Christ to the special needs community. Our call and our purpose in Christ. Today we find ourselves firmly placed in the midst of ministry that He has appointed for us.”
…to be continued next week.
TEF
