Lawrence is an amazing man. I have work along side him on several occasions. On the roof of the sanctuary – in the landscape surrounding the building – in the heat of church attic in the middle of the summer – cutting lumber for him for the new orchestra pit behind the pulpit - under the preacher's house. He was never tiring, or so it seemed. He would work circles around me, even though he is 18 years my senior.
Even more amazing is the fact that Lawrence did all this with a less than visible handicap. He wears prosthetic from just below his right knee.
He had walked into his shop one October afternoon – some seven years ago – to put away the odd tool, to rummage around for a scrap of lumber or perform some other mundane task. As he stood near the small air compressor, decay and oxidation give way to force, and the tank exploded. After painful therapy and rehab, Lawrence was able to get back to the labor he loved – doing for others and serving the Lord with his hands as well as his heart.
I could only imagine working with him before that accident. Or rather, in his dust…
On November 3rd of last year, near tragedy walloped Lawrence again. He was trimming and clearing dead pine trees around his house. He was on a scaffold on a fork lift, some 40 feet in the air, handling a chainsaw. Only problem was - he forgot to place the safety chain around the forks of the machinery.
Being an engineer, I did the math.
- 32 feet second per second
- 40 feet in the air
- 6 square inches of heel
I came up with – trying to stop a one ton car, traveling at 45 miles per hour with the heel of one foot. Since Lawrence tried to protect his right leg, all of the impact was absorbed by his left side.
Damage was intense. A broken left hip, broken femur, shattered knee joint and knee cap, broken tibia and fibula and a general rearrangement of the metatarsals.
A hip replacement and pins to realign the upper leg were the first order of business. External Pins in the lower leg with a splint (not a cast) until the pins were removed. Additional surgeries for the knee and heels were discussed and planned. But they are yet to happen. Early on, the doctors thought he would be bed bound for many months and confined to a wheel chair for years, if not the rest of his life.
Around the middle of January, Lawrence was back at church. On the first Sunday of February, he was back teaching our Sunday School class from a wheel chair. Three weeks later, he was walking with the aid of a walker.
This pass week I witnessed something that many would consider a miracle.
During Passion Week communion, Lawrence walked from the back of the sanctuary to the front and returned to his seat in the back of the auditorium by taking security on the ends of the pews.
Did I mention that “Lawrence is an amazing man” ???
He IS a WALKING testimony!
