March Herald.indd - Lake Union Conference

One Leg, Coming Right Up
B Y D I C K D U E R K S E N
Prayer is often better than a fast
food restaurant. Especially
when you live in rural Mexico and
need a new prosthetic leg.
I’m sure he has a real officialsounding
title, but Jim Lanning
will always be known to me as
the “Miracle Guy” for ADRA,
the international Adventist
Development and Relief Agency.
If you need 20 tons of milk, call
Jim. If your x-ray machine blows
a fuzola, call Jim. If you’d like to
donate 10,000 pairs of eyeglasses,
call Jim and he’ll get them to 10,000
pairs of eyes that need to see. Jim’s
e-mail address should be changed
to impossibilitiesfulfilled@prayer
neverstops.com.
“My e-mail is an adventure
every day,” says Jim, “So I read it
first thing every morning. I never
know what I’ll find.”
Like the morning he opened the
mail from an unknown address.
The message said something like,
“Needed: one left leg.”
The note was from a missionary
family in Mexico, in a village far
from medical care and, especially,
far from a source of prosthetic
limbs. It told the story of a young
woman who had been in an
accident and lost her left leg. It was
a long story, filled with details that
called forth the Kleenex from Jim’s
top drawer. “It’s hard to believe
that some lives can even find room
for so much sadness!”
Jim didn’t know the
family, and he noticed
they had sent the e-mail
to a dozen other aid
organizations. “Should
throw it away,” he
thought. Then he called a
doctor at Johns Hopkins,
and three other medical
friends to see how to
go about finding a leg.
“Left leg.”
No luck.
Then Jim’s
assistant walked
in with a blanketwrapped
package.
“An older couple
just brought this
to the security desk
upstairs and said to give
it to Jim Lanning. Want to see
what it is”
They unwrapped the blanket and
stared at a prosthetic leg. Left leg.
Jim sent the e-mail back with
a question. “I have your leg,” he
wrote. “How can I best get it to
you”
A message quickly
came back. “I see you
are in Maryland.
Are you anywhere
near Gaithersburg,
Maryland We
have a missionary
friend who lives
there and who is
coming to Mexico
tomorrow. Maybe he
could bring the leg.”
Ninety minutes
later, the Gaithersburg
missionary was in Jim’s
office to collect the leg.
Twenty-four hours later,
a physician in Mexico was
measuring the woman for her
new leg.
“Before you call,” God’s
promise reads, “I will answer.
While you are still speaking, I
will hear” Isaiah 65:24.
Left leg. God’s leg.
Delivered by Jim.
Dick Duerksen is the director
of mission development
for Florida Hospital
in Orlando.
Visit our Web site at luc.adventist.org Lake Union Herald, March 2004 • 9