By Juli McGowan Boit | Published: August 31, 2013
Jacob Ananda
Born: 1973
Guest at Living Room since August 11, 2011
In an act of violence that took the life of his nephew, Jacob became paralyzed by a bullet to his spine. Once the director of a primary school, Jacob had now remained confined to a hospital bed in Nairobi for eight months. I can only imagine his downward spiral as bed sores developed and he lost any means of supporting his wife and young sons. I cannot imagine the progression from injury to a loss of identity, to dependence, to hopelessness, to social isolation, and to community exclusion in the months that followed.
Eventually, Jacob was sent home where he remained in his bed as his wife completed his daily tasks including rolling him over to bandage his extensive bedsores. After five months of his wife completing the heavy work of caring for her husband, the family sought help at Kimbilio.
I first met Jacob when he was sitting in a wheelchair on the porch at Kimbilio; it had taken two staff members to lift him into the chair. I asked what his goals were, and in his humility and with an acute awareness of his current dependence for mobility tasks, he was silent. After all, what could he hope for when it took two men to lift him? He finally stated that he said he would like to be taught anything that could help. In the hours that followed, Jacob learned new ways to move his body and we watched as simple techniques improved his mobility. He learned to use momentum from his arms and shoulders to roll over in bed, learned to use his arms to move his legs, and learned how to balance himself in the absence of stomach and back muscles . That first day, through lots of sweat, Jacob learned to go from lying down to sitting up at the edge of his bed using only his arms. With assistance, this task took him 20 looooooong minutes. As the weeks and months passed, Jacob worked endlessly on these tasks. Through determination and a refusal to allow his paralyzed body to continue to shape his world, now the same maneuver takes him 30 seconds, and he can do it independently. In these past months, we have watched as a man with a broken body in a broken world has claimed redemption, inch by inch.
When we see Jacob, we are reminded of both a fallen world and the redemption of a Savior—of a Kingdom that is both coming and also not yet fully arrived. Because a once bed-bound husband can learn to face the world in a broken body. Because a father once requiring assistance to roll over will be able to get himself out of bed and propel himself at his sons’ graduations. Because a wife who lived through months of her husband’s dependency on her will watch him one day play with grandchildren on his lap. And because, on one magnificent day, when that Kingdom is fully come, Jacob will run on those wounded legs and we will all scream that the Redeemer is here, that the lame now walk, and that we were never mere mortals. We will see in the words of C.S. Lewis that, “He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into… a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly… His own boundless power and delight and goodness.” (Mere Christianity) My dear friends, because we see Jacob, we know the face of redemption both in the future and in this moment. And we are convinced that we will see the goodness of the Lord in this land of the living.
- Chrissie Stone, Physical Therapist and Friend of Living Room
Jacob is worth running for
This entry was posted in Blog. Bookmark the
permalink. or leave a trackback:
Trackback URL.
Category: Blog
Tags: No tags yet.
