As some of you may know, our son Jake and I began a ministry group called Jacob’s Ladder Special Needs Fitness about 11 years ago in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Our mission is to serve people with special needs with regular fitness opportunities. We also take time for a short Bible lesson after each session in which our students participate.
Our mission verse is best summarized in Matthew 25:40: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” So, we want to serve Jesus by serving the population of people with special challenges. And we also want to challenge this population to do their best and be all they can be.
Jake is now 21 years old, is a certified group fitness instructor for the special needs population, is CPR certified and is also a certified as a boxing instructor for this population. He trains regularly with a group of typical/regular men and women learning boxing (Strong Style in Independence, Ohio-near Cleveland). At these usually weekly training sessions with his trainer Justin, Jake works very hard and gets no slack or special treatment. Jake even gets “yelled at” sometimes. Forgot to mention, Jake has Down syndrome.
Besides this training class and our regular in person and zoom weekly classes for Jacob’s Ladder, Jake and I are also serving some organizations that offer day programs or vocational training for people with special needs in Northeast Ohio.
For one of the groups we serve, we are there regularly for a 50–60-minute workout. There are approximately 30 students. About half are in wheelchairs, and probably an equal number have limited or little verbal ability. This lack of verbal ability can also be accompanied by a fair amount of wandering around the large exercise room that we use, and also by various sounds coming from these individuals as they roam/meander through our workouts .
You might think this could cause some seemingly chaotic situations, but overall, everything is “under control,” though not necessarily what one might picture a large exercise or physical education class to look like that is “under control.” In fact, some of the higher functioning students, even those who might not be that verbal, will pitch in and help us direct their less functioning classmates. And much to my surprise, they do it with an acute level of awareness that frankly surprised me at first. It is as if they are very aware of what Jake and I are doing and they want to assist us. That in itself is very amazing to me.
Jake himself does pretty well in this environment, and also has that same innate awareness of the various students’ abilities to perform the exercises. For example, one of our favorite exercises is tossing weighted balls back and forth with the students, a very good exercise for building arm and shoulder strength, as well as hand-eye coordination. Jake is actually very gentle and careful not to throw the ball too hard; sometimes he just knows to hand an individual the ball, or throw it literally 2 inches from the student’s hands. I could not be prouder of this and of Jake’s patience. I think Jake and the others mentioned possess a spiritual gift of awareness that so many of us “normal” people just do not have.
A typical scenario in these classes is Jake and I working with the various students, who all come together in a large circle. Jake and I go around the room with various fitness equipment: stretchy bands for pushing/pulling, weighted balls for lifting and tossing, ropes for pulling hand over hand, or the thicker fitness ropes for working the arms. The students seem to like the class and are eager to participate. It is about one hour of nonstop action for us as we challenge the class to perform the various exercises.
At the end of one of these sometimes-hectic sessions, after we had loaded our equipment back into our vehicle, we both took our seats in the car and kind of looked at each other with a sense of exhaustion. I asked him, “Jake, what would you like to do now?” He made a very quick and distinct gesture, moving his right arm in a motion that clearly indicated he was imitating a person drinking a beer. He then said, “Let’s go to Fatheads Brewery, Dad!”
But that is not the story here, though it is a good one. Our story today is about one young lady in a wheelchair, non-verbal, with a half-functioning left hand. She had wire-rimmed John Lennon-like colored shades on, not the best for indoor workouts. She also had lots of bling on her hands: bracelets, a watch that didn’t work, sometimes two watches. Her hair was often done pretty nicely: someone had taken some time to do that, and I could see in her eyes that she was proud that she looked cute.
One thing I noticed on this particular day was that she had a cell phone that she clutched with that not fully functioning left hand. I sometimes like to playfully tease some of our students about cell phones, how we don’t use them during exercise classes and that they should turn the phones off during this time. I took the liberty of grabbing this young lady’s cell phone and said, “I’ll hold this for you.”
Well, that half-functioning left hand suddenly turned into a very quick-moving and strong, athletic arm, like she transformed that hand and arm into a martial arts appendage! The arm moved speedily and she quickly and athletically grabbed the phone from my hand. It was like a Bruce Lee or Kung Fu move! Her grip was strong and her eyes were piercing mine as if to say, “Look here buster, my cell phone is off limits, keep your hands off it, Jackson!” With a broadly smiling face, I placed the phone back into her waiting hand, and said something like, “Wow girl, that was impressive!”
But something else happened: I began to develop a relationship with her, and maybe had won her over. She liked the interaction and maybe she liked that I had challenged her and teased her a bit, and paid attention to her as a person. Over the next several weeks, she began to participate more. She really tried hard and worked with vigor to throw a 4 lb. soft pancake—like device we sometimes use as a substitute for harder round balls. She also progressively tugged harder on the resistance bands that Jake and I use frequently.
As part of our interaction, she also regularly began to give me her cell phone to hold, as well as her John Lennon wire-rimmed shades. I carefully placed the shades so they hung off the top inside of my shirt. I was reluctant to hold the cell phone, but only because I thought I might forget to give it back to her and pull it out of my pocket when I got back home. My wife will attest to such forgetful behavior!
But it was on another day I saw something or someone else in her eyes. This day, she struggled a bit to pull on the resistance bands and it was harder for her to grip the 4 pound “pancake.” Her eyes showed determination, but also seemed to be saying that she was hurting. I looked directly into those eyes that day and unexpectedly sensed Jesus talking to me. He was saying, “I am in here too, Tony; serve Me through this precious child of mine.” I immediately felt a surge of strength and a renewed effort to serve, as well as deep sense of joy.
Go back to Matthew 25:40 and consider again Jesus’ saying to us: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me.” In many cases, individuals like this young lady are considered less than they should be. But there are also people who genuinely love and serve them and want to make a difference. The next time you look into the eyes of those we all serve and love so much, consider Who might be looking back at you, and draw on His strength, and feel joyful!
God Bless!
Tony D’Orazio is the co-founder of Jacob’s Ladder Special Needs Fitness and author of Down Right Joy. Follow Tony and Jake on Facebook.
