“If you can?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”~ Mark 9:23 While I love having family nearby (my parents and my oldest son both live within a mile of our house), having family in other areas of the country also has advantages, particularly for providing the opportunity to meet people that we might otherwise have never met. My husband is from Baton Rouge, and some members of his family still live in Louisiana. Consequently we have made several close friends during our visits to Cajun country. One stands out from the rest, and during our visits to Louisiana when our children were young they’d always ask, “Are we going to see Mr. Dean?” My father-in-law (Papa Z) met Dean Navarre in the early nineties, and they quickly became friends. Dean went fishing with Papa Z. They played cards. They started a chapter of the Lions Club in Louisiana. All of those things might seem like normal occurrences between friends, but there was a major difference… Mr. Dean was born with no arms. Rene and Kaleb were always amazed to watch Mr. Dean drive with his feet, play cards so skillfully that you would forget he was using toes instead of fingers and bait a hook as well as the best of fishermen. But Mr. Dean never saw himself as having a disability; in fact, he used his situation to help others. As I mentioned above, he and my father-in-law started a chapter of the Lions Club. Mr. Dean was one of the first to ever attend the Louisiana Lions Camp, which is for youth with special needs and free of charge, in 1958. And he didn’t forget the organization that helped him growing up, nor did he see any reason he couldn’t help other children with unique physical circumstances. And in 2011, he was awarded the Melvin Jones Fellowship Award, the most prestigious honor given by the Lions Club for lifetime achievement and humanitarian work. I have no doubt that some with Mr. Dean’s circumstances would have seen their situation as discouraging, but he saw it as an opportunity to trust in God, to help His children and to show everyone he meets that all things are truly possible with Christ. This Week: Think of something you believe impossible. Turn it over to Christ. And if you want to see Mr. Dean in action (as in fishing and woodworking…with his feet), you can view a video here: https://youtube/watch?v=Kf0gc4apEjE
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:08:38 +0000
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