By Not Known
I had a childhood friend, Peng Loong whose home was just ten houses away in the Chinatown neighborhood where we grew up. We used to play basketball together and Loong was a brilliant player. One day, Loong slipped and fell on the slippery court and was sent to hospital. He went into a coma for a month and when he did wake up, he was already paralyzed from waist down. He could not join us to play basketball anymore but would just watched us from a distance.
We grew up and we went to different schools and eventually moved away from Chinatown. Some ten years later, we had a chance meeting with the team that used to play basketball together. Loong wasn’t there but I was told that he graduated from university and became a social worker.
The first opportunity I had, I looked him up and found him playing basketball with a bunch of youths. The youths were running up and down and shooting from their feet but Loong was in his wheelchair and shooting the basket from it. He still played brilliantly in spite of his handicap. We managed to sit down and talked and shared about our missing years. He had become a Christian, he said. And the sole reason why he was playing basketball with these street kids was to help them find God. When I heard that I could not contain my tears.
Another two years passed and news came that Loong had struggled with leukemia and finally succumbed to it and died. I was there at the funeral, so did those boys who played basketball with him. Several went up to share their testimonies of how Loong had brought them to the Lord. It was touching and meaningful.
God used Loong although he was handicapped, to lead these boys to God. Perhaps that was why God extended his life because these boys were waiting to enter the Kingdom of God through his life and sharing.
God will use you too when you are willing to submit to Him in spite of your weaknesses and frailties. He has gifted you for ministry and to accomplish His calling. Only God knows what may be accomplished when you totally surrender yourselves to Him and obey His calling in your lives, both individually as well as a community.
Peter Poon