The Plain Values Podcast EP #29 – Turning Wheelchairs into Witness, One Restored Life at a Time

Marlin Miller:

If you have not heard about Johnny, she is an incredible lady. She’s 76 years old, but back in 1967, she was just out of high school. She was celebrating with friends and family. I was at the Chesapeake Bay. She went out to this raft, swam out to a raft, and she thought she’d do this incredible dive. Well, she dove into the water, but there was a sandbar. She hit her head and broke her neck. People first is the mentality. Welcome the person for who they are, who God created them to be. Don’t look at the disability per se. Look at who God created them to be. We’ve also had people right off the street who have had both legs amputated and crawling in the street. So we see them, we say, “Come in, get a wheelchair.” They leave a new person.

Wally Ziolo:

The other day, Wally Ziolo popped in at the office here out of the blue and brought us donuts. And we got to talking and we caught up about all the work that he’s doing with Johnny and friends. And it worked out. He’s from a couple hours away and it worked out so well that we jumped into the studio here and we recorded a bit about Johnny Ericksontata, their ministry, their work that they’re doing with wheelchairs and with respite and with just simply being part and building church ministry around disability. And it was a great conversation. Please meet my friend, Wally Ziolo. And if you get anything out of this, if you enjoy the content that Plain Values is putting out there, I know that everybody asks you to do it, but it does make a difference. So I will very humbly ask you to like and comment and smash the subscribe button.

This podcast is sponsored by my friends at Azure Standard. A while back, I had a chance to sit down with the founder, David Stelzer, right here at the table. And we had a great conversation. I love the Azure story. They started out as farmers back in the ’70s and I think in 1987, they began a nationwide food distribution company. And guys, they are non- GMO organic. They do it right. They do it so well. And you can get a truck to drop food right in your town. Check them out at Azurestandard.com and tell them Marlin and Plain Values sent you. Wally, I am so glad that this has worked out the way it did. Thank you for coming up. My blessing. Well, thank you for just popping in on us. And bringing us donuts, by the way, that’s always a win. And I know that they’re fantastic, so thank you.

Got

Marlin Miller:

To give a shout out to Miller’s Bakery.

Wally Ziolo:

We do. That is very true. Yeah, that wouldn’t be fair to not say where they came from. Light and fluffy. So you and I met a couple years ago.

Marlin Miller:

It’s been a couple years ago. It’s been a couple years

Wally Ziolo:

Through mutual friends.

Marlin Miller:

Yes.

Wally Ziolo:

From down your way. Lancaster. They are in …

Marlin Miller:

They’re in Lebanon.

Wally Ziolo:

Lebanon. That’s

Marlin Miller:

Right.

Wally Ziolo:

Yeah, that’s right. So you’re with Johnny and friends.

Marlin Miller:

Yes.

Wally Ziolo:

Let’s start there. Let’s start with Johnny’s story. I don’t know that there’s many folks that haven’t heard of Johnny Ericksontata, but in case there are, would you mind?

Marlin Miller:

Hey, if you have not heard about Johnny, she is an incredible lady. She’s 76 years old, but back in 1967, she was just out of high school. She was celebrating with friends and family. I was at the Chesapeake Bay. They lived in that area and she went out to this raft, swam out to a raft and she thought she’d do this incredible dive. Well, she dove into the water, but there was a sandbar. She hit her head and broke her neck. And she was actually floating face down. And her sister who was with her said, “Johnny, I think a crab just pinched my toe. Look out, John.” And she’s like, “Where’s Johnny?” And Johnny, they saw her floating face down because of her blonde hair. That’s the only way they could identify. And they’re like, “Oh my goodness, get her out of the water.”

Wally Ziolo:

So if the crab wouldn’t have bit

Marlin Miller:

Her sister’s toe. So it was God moving to say, “Let me get your attention so you can have attention on Johnny.” Otherwise, she would’ve drowned.

Wally Ziolo:

Wow.

Marlin Miller:

So they got her out, took her to the hospital, and within a couple days they discovered that she was quadriplegic and that she would not recover from that. And now Johnny can move her arms, but she cannot use her hands or her feet, her legs, but she hasn’t developed an incredible talent of art and she holds a pen or a paintbrush in her mouth and does incredible paintings. But even beyond that, God used that tragic situation to turn her life around and to devote her to wanting to support families living with disability all around the world and to share the hope of Jesus Christ. And so in 1979, after some fame and notoriety, there was a movie done by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association that kind of launched her a little bit. Billy Graham had her go on tour with him a few times. And then she was also on the Today Show and that got her some notoriety.

And people started writing in to Johnny saying, “Help me. I also feel like my life isn’t valuable or I contemplate would death be better or I just need some hope. What do you recommend?” And she of course would always point to Jesus. So around her kitchen table, what developed as Johnny and her friends became a ministry, responding to the needs of those families living with disability.

Wally Ziolo:

Can I ask a question? So the accident happened in 67.

Marlin Miller:

67.

Wally Ziolo:

How old was she when it happened?

Marlin Miller:

She was 17 years old. 17 years old. She was just in high school. And that had a tragic change to her life, but it wasn’t tragic because Jesus stepped in and said, “No, I allowed this to

Wally Ziolo:

Happen.” So she was on the Today Show and connected with Billy Graham and

Marlin Miller:

His- Billy Graham was the first one to pick her up.

Wally Ziolo:

This would have just been a few years after,

Marlin Miller:

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So she had been on some of his campaigns, some of his public events to give her testimony of how God moved in her situation.

Wally Ziolo:

Do you know how they found her?

Marlin Miller:

They did a story on her and he read the book. Oh, she had written a book? She had written a book and he read the book and he’s like, “We need this girl. Look, get her in here.” Wow. And so she got the tour with Billy Graham and share her testimony in front of millions of people and that definitely kicked things off.

Wally Ziolo:

Okay. Thank you. I know that your organization, Johnny and Friends, you guys are extremely wide as far as all of the different types of work that you do. Can you share the breadth of the work?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. So what started as response basically to letters coming in has turned into a full-fledged international ministry. We have our family retreats, our week-long respites for families living with disability, and those happen all across the country and around the world. We have international family retreats. We have domestic family retreats. We have an arm of the ministry called Wheels for the World where we collect used wheelchair equipment, manual walker, or manual wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, and canes here in the US. They go to prison partners of ours in the US, get restored to like new condition and then go out into the world as an international ministry.

Wally Ziolo:

Did you say prison partners?

Marlin Miller:

Prison partners. So we have select prisons that have prisoners assigned to be working for Wheels for the world with Johnny and friends, restoring this equipment, scrubbing it, replacing parts that are broken, putting pieces together to make a usable wheelchair, and then they get shipped out into the world. It’s an international ministry. And along with that, we share the hope of Jesus Christ. Everybody receives a wheelchair, gets a Bible in their own language, speaks to a pastor. Many come to Christ through that tangible gift of who would send such a gift. Jesus did.

Wally Ziolo:

Wow. Okay. What else do you guys do?

Marlin Miller:

As I mentioned, our family retreats, we also do halftime respites, which are a day, half a day for families to give respite. But we also engaged the church because God called his church to open the doors, to make disciples of all people. So we have an arm, and I’m a ministry of relations manager. It’s my job to equip churches, to open their doors, to welcome families, to utilize and recognize their God-given gifts and talents, and to make them disciples so that they can go out into the world and share the hope.

Wally Ziolo:

Wally, when you look at how the Lord uses those around us with special needs, what are some of your favorite stories of impact?

Marlin Miller:

I love their heart because Jesus said, let the children come to me and to have a childlike faith, a childlike belief, to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were created in God’s image and to see them as image bearers and to get to know them. Sure, we are a disability ministry, but the people that we meet are so incredible. The families we serve are amazing and it just gives us an opportunity to know that beyond the disability are people that God made in his image and he gave each one of them at least one gift or a talent. And when you identify that and you realize you’re interacting with people, it’s amazing. Some of the stories we have one guy who calls our office because he’s so excited about our family retreats. He calls like a year ahead and he wants to know the song, the theme.

He wants to know what our theme song is. He wants to know … He’s asked if we could do a special Christmas retreat so that he and his family could come and celebrate Christmas with us. Those are the incredible stories, knowing that we serve families for the first time and they cannot wait to come back the next year. To see the impact, we’ve had families come to Christ. We’ve even done a baptism in the swimming pool at a family retreat because they decided we want Jesus. We want whoever sent all of these loving people to us, we want to accept him. Just transformational. The volunteers who come, we’ve had some return back to college to change their majors because of the impact that families have made on them.

Wally Ziolo:

Really?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

That’s exactly where I was going to go next, was to the volunteers. There is something very, very special. So I’ll use our family.

Marlin Miller:

Okay.

Wally Ziolo:

Our daughter is 16, has Down syndrome. Our son who’s 13 has Down Syndrome and is nonverbal, almost nonverbal, and our youngest has Mosaic Down syndrome and is eight. And when Lisa takes them grocery shopping or when I get to take them out somewhere, Wally, it is the coolest thing in the world because they are always in tune, especially our daughter. She is incredibly in tune with, I think, just people’s hearts, the state of their being.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

And she has walked up to total another strangers. She doesn’t know a stranger, obviously, and she has blown people away, giving them hugs and wishing them happy birthday. She has no idea if it’s their birthday or not, but it’s everybody’s birthday. And it is an incredible thing to watch. And here’s my point. When I get to meet other folks, we can usually tell and our kids can tell if they have a heart for kids with special needs or if they have some experience with kids with special needs because they kind of reveal themselves. You just know, you just feel it. And I love meeting other families with kids with special needs. So how did you get into this work? Well,

Marlin Miller:

It was a work of God. I actually was in aviation for 15 years of my life, and I got to the pinnacle of aviation. I was at a place called NetJets, Flying the Rich and Famous, and I became a Christian during that time. And one day I was on an airplane and I was like, “God, I don’t want to be around these people anymore. They’re concerned about themselves and their wealth and their power and I don’t want to be here anymore. Please take me out of here.” And so I got a three-year buyout package offered a month later and I was like, “God, you were really moving.”

Wally Ziolo:

You didn’t bring it on, they did?

Marlin Miller:

The

Wally Ziolo:

Timing worked out.

Marlin Miller:

The timing worked out. So a month later I took a three year buyout. I left. I had three years to focus on ministry. So I did things like National Day of Prayer and I did a prayer, prayed in the community and just focused on

Things. I was an area coordinator with Operation Christmas Child and the Lord, when it was time to go back to work, put me into a home with two individuals with disabilities and I became a caregiver. For five years, I served one of the brothers, did everything he couldn’t speak, so I would be his vocal peace. I would go to doctor’s appointments, ensure his health and his care. I would drive him wherever he needed to go, care for whatever needs he couldn’t do on his own. And that led to working at the County Board of DD in the county I lived in. I was a job coach. So I got to work with incredible people with disabilities, learning job skills and getting jobs. And it’s funny because to this day, right next to us where our Johnny and Friend’s office is, there’s a young woman working in a daycare and I got to be one of her trainers back in the day.

Wally Ziolo:

All those years ago.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. I see her every day and I was like, “Man, she’s just got a heart to serve.” And she’s a wonderful worker. They said even during COVID, she worked the drive, the intensity to want to be a part of what God’s doing through them.

Wally Ziolo:

How do you see the church’s response? Like what is the average church response when you reach out?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. It all depends because we’ve had pastors, their families impacted by disability. They’re the first ones on board. They get it. They see that the church has to be a part, an integral part of supporting these families and the pastors get it. There are the churches that are starting to recognize where we’ve got these families coming with disability and we need to know how to love them, how to make disciples of them. So they reach out, but yet there are those churches that just don’t know yet. Maybe they haven’t recognized that there’s a disability in their church. Maybe they haven’t really recognized that there’s disability families in their community that are looking for hope of Jesus. And so we knock on a lot of doors. We offer our free assistance to the churches. We go and train them on disability etiquette. How do you welcome people of all different types of disability?

How do you support their needs? And most importantly, how can you turn them into disciples of Jesus Christ?

Wally Ziolo:

Yeah. What do you see as the best way to get a church to understand the need, which by the way, how many families that have kids with disabilities are going to church?

Marlin Miller:

It’s a very small percentage. It’s maybe 14% because families, number one, maybe don’t feel welcomed at churches. Maybe they’ve attended a church and been asked to leave, which we hear a lot. Somebody was too noisy in the church or somebody had too many needs. So the church … I’ve actually heard of a family that was escorted out.

Wally Ziolo:

Are you serious?

Marlin Miller:

During a service, come with me and escorted out. That happens quite a bit and the church is the bride of Christ. The church should be the most accommodating, the most loving. And so we’re not admonishing the church at all. We’re here to help them. We want to walk alongside of them and give them the tools and the training and God’s commissioning to welcome families living with disability. That’s

Wally Ziolo:

Really frustrating. That’s really sad.

Marlin Miller:

It is sad, but again, how will they know unless they’re here? We want to be the ones that help open their eyes. We want to be the ones that help open their ears. We want to connect families to churches that will love them and welcome them and allow them to become disciples of Jesus Christ. And when I first started my job five years ago, I thought, this is going to be easy. What are they going to do then? Lay me off or fire me? I don’t know.

Wally Ziolo:

Because how could a church say no?

Marlin Miller:

You would think. But until Jesus comes back, this is our mission. We want to see families connected to loving churches. We want to see disciples being made. We want to see the church equipped and compelled to welcome families.

Wally Ziolo:

Is it just a thing that takes time with getting … And I feel like I’m beating a drum here that I maybe shouldn’t. And I’m not … Of course, I’m not trying to dishonor the bride. That’s not my point. But we have many friends who have kids with special needs and our own family, we know how hard it can be to go to church and how hard it can be to get connected and plugged in. And it just makes me sad that a church would actually physically escort a family out. That blows my mind, Wally.

Marlin Miller:

I think at times it’s just being naive. It’s being unaware of how to serve families. And that’s where we have so many resources that we can offer. We can offer trainings. There’s leadership training, so we can come into the church and talk to their leaders about God’s commissioning with disability. So we do that. We have a disability etiquette training where we offer it to the whole congregation to show them how to welcome people with disability, to break down the myth and the fear of disability, which I think there’s a lot of.

Wally Ziolo:

I think you tapped on the right thing there. It seems to me that there’s a lot of fear. They don’t know and they are …

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. It

Wally Ziolo:

Seems like they get nervous and they don’t know what to say. And so many times they don’t say anything or they stare, I mean, whatever.

Marlin Miller:

And there’s that organic ministry too, where a family comes in and a family’s loved and supported and the church just kind of comes around them. That’s what we would like to see. That’s what- It should be organic.

Wally Ziolo:

That’s the purpose.

Marlin Miller:

Love the people that God created and love them well.

Wally Ziolo:

What do you see as far as the overarching cultural attitudes? How have they changed in the last five to 10 years?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. Well, as terms change and as communities are being engaged to resource the families and connect them, I see the church now opening its eyes a bit. And we have stellar examples of churches who have done disability ministry to the tee. It’s not down the hall. It’s you belong here. You’re a part of this body of Christ. We send you out as any other disciple. That’s what we want to see, and that’s where we can help churches get to. And churches are starting to … We’re getting a lot of calls from new churches saying, “We’ve got families attending with disability. How do we serve them? How do we welcome them? How do we love them?” And that’s where we step in and say, “Let us come alongside of you. We don’t charge you for anything. We just want to be here to help ensure your success.”

Wally Ziolo:

So let’s talk about the upcoming things

Marlin Miller:

Right

Wally Ziolo:

Here this summer.

Marlin Miller:

We’ve got beautiful things coming up. One of the missions of Johnny and Friends is to give respite and to teach churches how to give respite. So we have three here in Ohio family retreats, which are a five day respite event for families, the whole entire family living with disability. So they come in and we have buddies that are volunteers that come along and serve those families during that five day period. We train our buddies. So they come in a day and a half early. We give them all of the training. I mean, it’s like drinking from a fire hose, but we most importantly compel their hearts, encourage their hearts to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus. And it’s amazing. We cannot do these events without the volunteers because obviously a staff of five is not going to be able to serve all these families.

So volunteers are so, so important. But we have one in West Portsmouth down at the bottom of the state. That’s June 15 to 19. That’s for the families. Again, a day and a half before that volunteers show up, we train them. We give the assignments of who they’re going to work with and we get to see what Jesus does. It’s pretty cool. July 13 to 17 here in Berlin at Encore Hotel and Suites, that is our next event. And then in August the 3rd through the 7th, that’s an adult week. So it’s 18 and above individuals with their families or individuals. And then our volunteers have to be 18 and above to serve during that week. But as a volunteer, you come, you give your hands and your feet, you give your heart, and you’re going to be paired up with an amazing person with disability and you’re going to serve them throughout the day.

Maybe you’ll spend time with the family during the evening events and we see some relationships grow that are amazing. I mean, college students get time off and they said, “When’s that birthday we’re coming to celebrate?” Or, “We’ll see you at Christmas time.” Or some have even said, “Let’s go on vacation or whatever.” Wow. They come back and change their college majors to go into a field with disability.

There is a cost involved because we consider it to be a local missions trip. So families pay us a very small fee, not more than you would pay to go on a vacation, actually less. And then the volunteers have a cost as well, but that covers their lodging, the food, three great meals a day, desserts and any scheduled activities, but it’s an incredible time to serve. And if you’re interested at all, go to our website, johnnyjonianfriends.org/ohio and look at our events. We’ve also got international opportunities with Wheels for the world that you can get involved in. And those are incredible week long opportunities where we hand out the wheelchairs. We custom fit them to the individual. We don’t want to send anybody away in worse shape than they arrive, but we most importantly want to give them the hope of Jesus Christ, the gospel.

Wally Ziolo:

This episode of the Plain Values Podcast is being brought to you by my friends at Kentucky Lumber. Derek and I were talking this morning and he shared a story about how they like to do business and they like to do business with people that are like them and they like to be treated in a way that they treat their own customers. He told me about a customer of theirs that he had to fire. And this was not going the way that it typically does. And this guy was not being happy with anything that they did and nothing was good enough. And finally Derek said, “You know what? You’ve disrespected my team enough and I think we’re done.” And so you can go find your lumber someplace else. And the attitude and the heart behind the way that Derek sees the world is exactly the way that I see the world and I have a hunch you might as well.

If you call Kentucky Lumber, just know that they might fire you if you treat them poorly. I’m kidding, of course. But they will treat you with the utmost respect because it’s how they want to be treated. And I think there’s a golden rule thing in there somewhere, but if you need anything at all to do with any lumber, wood flooring, wood siding, any type of wood product that has character just baked into it and a great team to match, call my friends at Kentucky Lumber. You can find them at drywallhaters.com. Let’s talk about the wheelchairs for a little bit.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

I love books. I love searching for old bookstores, and one of the best places to find used books is at thrift stores. I don’t want to say that it happens all the time, but it is not uncommon to walk into a thrift store and see an old beat up wheelchair or set of crutches. If somebody would just simply say, “I’m going to just buy them,” just because they’re typically 10 bucks or 20 bucks

Marlin Miller:

Or

Wally Ziolo:

Whatever they are.

Marlin Miller:

“Hey, I’ve gone to yard sales and bought them.

Wally Ziolo:

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

How do we get them to you? How does that actually go down?

Marlin Miller:

Yeah. So you could basically go to the Johnny and Friends website, J-O-N-I-A-N-D-F-R-I-E-N-D-S.org. Look under what we do, Wheels for the World. There is an actual map on there that you can put in your zip code and it’ll connect you with the closest wheelchair collection volunteer who can either have you drop off that equipment or come and get it from you. It depends on which volunteer we have. We only take manual wheelchairs. A lot of people say,” Do you take power chairs? “We don’t simply because it costs a lot to ship those. They’re bulky, they’re big. They’re heavy. Plus, who in a foreign country is going to have a battery to replace that with? It’s almost impossible. So manual wheelchairs, folding walkers, canes and crutches are what we take. And I would give you a little extra hint because I’ve seen this. Make sure you give a firm pull on the cane handle.

One time we had a sword and those cannot go to prisons to be restored. Can you imagine that? We’re getting out of here. No.

Wally Ziolo:

Okay. That’s pretty funny. So, right. They go to the prison, they get refurbed and fixed up,

Marlin Miller:

And

Wally Ziolo:

Then they get shipped out.

Marlin Miller:

They’re beautiful.

Wally Ziolo:

All over the world. All over

Marlin Miller:

The world. Oh my goodness. We do not do anything domestically because we Know that the need is so great internationally. So we send everything out. We have teams of volunteers. We have mechanics, mechanic assistants, therapists, licensed therapists, physical and occupational, seamstresses, photographer, world-class photographers. I mean like good photographers. And then support people that might say, “Here’s your new wheelchair. Let me teach you how to use it, how to put the brakes on, how to adjust the back.”

Wally Ziolo:

Do you per chance have any trips upcoming there, Wally?

Marlin Miller:

We do. Out of our office- Funny

Wally Ziolo:

You should ask. Out

Marlin Miller:

Of our office, we have wheels for the world going to Argentina, Mendoza. I’ve been there. It’s beautiful. May 8th through May 16th, there is a cost for that. It’s 3,369. Again, covers all lodging, transportation, food, excursions, get a little bit of sightseeing while you’re there. And then Wheels for the World El Salvador, which I plan to be on, San Miguel, and that’s October 2nd through the 11th. And the cost for that is $2,286, which is really pretty good for all that you get to do. Each family is custom fit into their device. We pray with them. We love them. They get to speak to a pastor. They’re given a Bible in their own language and many, many, many come to Christ simply because of that great gift that they’ve received where they thought it’d be impossible.

Wally Ziolo:

In those situations, how many of those families or individuals have seen any kind of reach out like that?

Marlin Miller:

I mean, it’s amazing to see families cry, cry. They cry. We’ve had people who have come with us, volunteers who have had a Polaroid camera, take a picture of the family. When I was in Mexico last year, the therapist working with this family said, “I think I’ve seen you before.” And he goes through his phone and he’s like, “Yes, I was with you two years ago.” And they said, “See, we have your picture on the mantle next to our family pictures.” Get out of here. And he’s like, “What? Really?” So they had another one taken and they said they’re going to add that because people grow out, they outgrow their wheelchairs so they may have to come back, but we’ve also had people right off the street who have had both legs amputated and crawling in the street. So we see them, we say, “Come in, get a wheelchair.” They leave a new person.

I had a man who came in El Salvador. He had lost his job as a teacher because he was no longer mobile, because he had paralysis on the left side. The wheelchair that we had there had this strange little cane device, and if you pushed it forward, the chair would self-propel forward. There was a lever, you did that lever, you pulled the cane back and the chair would propel backwards.

Wally Ziolo:

But it wasn’t a power chair.

Marlin Miller:

It was not a power chair. It was a manual chair that had power in it. So when he came, we identified his need. We put him in that chair. He was able to self-propel himself with his right hand. And we had a Johnny’s house, which is a whole thing that we haven’t talked about. During COVID, we said, “We can’t get into the world.” So we established local Johnny’s houses and they’re all over the place, but they give support, care, physical therapy, all free of charge for these families. So we were able to connect this individual with his new wheelchair and his new mobility to Johnny’s house to help him to go back and get his job back.

Wally Ziolo:

No kidding.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

So do you remember what country that was?

Marlin Miller:

That was El Salvador.

Wally Ziolo:

That was El Salvador.

Marlin Miller:

In San Salvador, the city, the capital.

Wally Ziolo:

Right. Yeah. I wrote down San Salvador and then I thought, wait, I think that’s the same country. How do you guys get set up in that type of a situation in those countries? Are you sending out a recon guy and they go in and try to get a place to …

Marlin Miller:

Well, it usually starts from a request from the country saying, “Can you help us?” Really? And then we of course go and we equip the volunteers or the leadership team and then we start putting things into place. Wow. We’ve been to Brazil and done Johnny’s house there because of a need. El Salvador was one of our first countries. They actually have an international restoration facility now that’s like our prison, but it’s not a prison.

Wally Ziolo:

Really?

Marlin Miller:

And we have actual Johnny and Friends employees who work in that facility to resource all of South America with those wheelchairs that are restored.

Wally Ziolo:

Out of Brazil?

Marlin Miller:

Out of El Salvador.

Wally Ziolo:

Okay. I’m sorry.

Marlin Miller:

Wow. The individuals working there, there’s, I believe three of them who are wheelchair users themselves who are then refurbishing the wheelchairs and equipment. I’ve gotten to meet them. And at the time, they were the highest producing, best quality facility anywhere.

Wally Ziolo:

Wow.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

It is an incredible thing to watch and to see how the Lord will use and how he does. I shouldn’t say will. He does

Marlin Miller:

Use

Wally Ziolo:

Things that we see as huge, massive tragedies, and he’ll just take them and turn them around and absolutely just knock your socks off.

Marlin Miller:

Exactly.

Wally Ziolo:

Wow.

Marlin Miller:

And we address people first is the mentality. Welcome the person for who they are, who God created them to be. Don’t look at the disability per se. Look at who God created them to be. And everybody has a gift or a talent to offer. And when you recognize that in somebody with a disability, you found a treasure because you’ve got another person that God created right in front of you and welcomed them, love them, have them co-partner in the kingdom missions that you have.

Wally Ziolo:

And you probably have a friend for life. For sure. You do. You just do. Last question.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

How can we pray for you?

Marlin Miller:

I would pray, especially in my role of engaging churches, that the churches feel comfortable. They trust this ministry to come and partner with them. That their eyes would be open, that their ears will be opened, that their hearts will be opened and receptive. And if they are afraid, let us come alongside of them and say there’s nothing to be afraid of. To recognize what God is calling them to do, to open their doors, open their hearts and make disciples.

Wally Ziolo:

Some of the best friendships come out of the people that the world tends to miss and forget.

Marlin Miller:

For sure. Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

I’ve

Marlin Miller:

Had some incredible friends. I do have incredible friends with disability that I would not trade for anybody. Yeah. They’re wonderful people.

Wally Ziolo:

Wow. Well, I thank you. Thanks for making this work. Thank you. Thanks for putting this quickly together here.

Marlin Miller:

Yeah.

Wally Ziolo:

What

Marlin Miller:

A blessing.

Wally Ziolo:

Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. You are very welcome. Thank you. My wife loves Jill Winger’s old-fashioned on purpose planner, and this year’s is better than ever. It has all sorts of tabs from your gardens, to your animals, to your meals. Anything and everything that you can imagine that needs planning, Jill has built a spot for it in here. You can find this at homesteadliving.com. Order yours today for 2026. So hold my hair. In his book, Rembrandt is in the wind, Russ Ramsey says that the Bible is the story of the God of the universe telling his people to care for the sojourner, the poor, the orphan, and the widow. And it’s the story of his people struggling to find the humility to carry out that holy calling. Guys, that is what Plain Values is all about. If you got anything out of this podcast, you will probably love Plain Values in print.

You can go to plainvalues.com to learn more and check it out. Please like, subscribe and leave us a review. Guys, love you all. Thanks so much.