Bacteria in the Body
How can we build strong churches when we keep attracting weak people?
Dave Jackson
January 1, 1983
Sara wanted help. She was twenty-seven and dying. No self-respecting Christian would blatantly turn aside, and yet the cost of caring for Sara seemed overwhelming. She had ALS, a degenerative nerve disease that would soon kill her. The rehabilitation institute had done everything it could to help her cope with what was happening so rapidly in her body. She wanted to go home to her apartment for a couple of weeks before spending her last days with her mother. A nurse would be with her during the days, but Sara was terrified of sleeping. Her father had died of ALS in his sleep less than a year ago. She asked if some women from our church could stay with her at night. Sara was not a Christian, but she had heard about our church from a co-worker a year ago-before her disease was evident. Jerry and his wife, Kathy, had stayed in contact with Sara as the disease progressed and was diagnosed. When they brought her to church, many people reached out to welcome her. One was Martha, a paraplegic who knew the agony of living in a body that did not function properly. We could have sent Sara to a nursing home or encouraged her to move in with her mother sooner. Both options might have met our Christian duty, and they would have avoided disrupting anyone's schedule. But she had asked for our help. Would Sara receive the Lord if we cared for her? Who could know? It wasn't even fair to toy with such an expectation. There -was only one legitimate question. Sara had asked for our help; could we, would we give it? Sixteen women volunteered to spend the nights with Sara in teams of two. In some cases the volunteers had to find care for their own children; they adjusted their schedules, dropped out of other church obligations, and agreed to live with ...
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