UNITED METHODIST MEN
Willing hands and loving hearts By David Kennedy
“...You will free the captives from prison, releasing those who sit in dark dungeons.” Isa. 42:6 Freedom isn’t free; it has its price and someone must pay that price. The volunteers of Servants At Work (SAWs®) have decided it is a price they are willing to pay for someone else’s freedom.
Beverly’s story Donna and her husband Chuck have been foster parents to 18 children with disabilities over the years, and there was one 3-year-old named Beverly that Donna was determined to adopt. Forget it. Doctors told Donna that Beverly would not reach the age of 5. Brain-damaged by injuries before her fifth day of life, she was best left to institutional care for the short time she had been allotted. “Don’t get attached to Beverly,” they said. “She’s not going to make it. She will never walk, talk, or call you ‘Mommy’.” That was 39 years ago. Beverly endures multiple health problems. She needs a heroic amount of care. She also is witty, vivacious,
David Kennedy is a volunteer and board member of SAWs who has personally experienced some of the limitations to mobility and daily activities that effect SAWs clients.
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kind, courageous, a movie buff, a wizard at jigsaw puzzles, and by her mother’s description, “the star of the family” that includes eight grown siblings. “She’s been a blessing,” Donna says. “We thank God for her every day.” As it happens, “Blessing” is the same word she uses for the volunteers from SAWs who gathered to build a multi-level ramp at the rear of their Southside Indianapolis home, thus ending a daily ordeal of coming and going. Cerebral palsy contracted in infancy has left Beverly with lifelong balance difficulties and impaired vision. The front and back stoops of the home were not manageable to her wheelchair. Doctors say that Donna, 68, and Chuck, 77 also have disabilities that will have them both in need of wheelchairs down the road. Living on modest pensions but caught in the no-man’s-land just above eligibility for public-health assistance, they have been “eaten up,” as Donna puts it, by medical bills from Beverly’s cerebral palsy, diabetes, heart problems, seizures, and injuries. Nevertheless, they hesitated when a family member mentioned SAWs. They thought others might be more deserving. The organization found the family most deserving when Donna finally made the contact. The result was a handsome two-directional 20-foot ramp. “They did a great job,” Chuck said as Donna eased Beverly down the structure a few days after installation. “We’d just been praying for this. I didn’t want to do
