Recently while our organization worked in Ghana, West Africa to provide artificial limbs to amputees, we visited a children's rehabilitation center in Nsawam and provided them several large boxes of prosthetic supplies, as well as several hundred Bibles. The children there are recovering from amputation, polio, clubfeet, and various other orthopedic related injuries. They also have a large prosthetics and orthotics shop on site, and the prosthetic technicians working there were awestruck by my wife, Gracie, and her artificial legs. Gracie decided long ago to stop wearing cosmetic covering on her prostheses and so she's used to people staring at what I like to call her "robot legs."

The car accident back in 1983 that cost Gracie her legs forced her to have many operations, and she was still recovering from surgery number sixty-eight just two months prior to this particular trip. Taking a moment to sit down and rest, all the techs crowded around her, and Gracie decided to take her legs off while they swarmed around to view the technology that helps Gracie walk.

Comfort, a local Ghanaian woman who works there, is also an amputee who lost one of her legs after being hit by a car twenty-five years ago. She asked me how Gracie lost her legs.

"She had a car accident over twenty years ago, " I told her.

Comfort's face lit up and she exuberantly said, "Oh, just like me!"

I am always struck by the little encounters that happen when we are in an environment like this. We went to Nsawam to take supplies, but it was the fascination of the children over Gracie that defined the experience for me. These little boys and girls living with painful situations were immediately drawn to Gracie because she is "just like them."

It is difficult for them to grasp the reality of America; it's almost impossible for them to understand that some Americans live with some of the same problems they do. In the little lunchroom, the children were all staring at Gracie with rapt attention. When she danced with one of the girls who was an amputee …and another with braces on because of polio, all the other children started cheering, while clapping and singing. Gracie again took one of her legs off and passed it around so the kids could touch it. You could see it in their eyes; they were all saying, "She's just like me!"

While back at Ghana's National Prosthetic and Orthotics Center where we partner with the government of Ghana to train workers on building prosthetic limbs, I went around introducing myself to our patients. The room was full of amputees who crawled, were carried, hopped, or wheeled in to this prosthetic shop in hopes of getting a new leg …and a new lease on life. I kept sticking my hand out to each patient, until I came to the last one. Her name was Mary, and she had leprosy. Her arm was covered with sores and scars, and her right leg was gone, as well as several fingers. Although my hand was already halfway extended, I felt it stiffen. Our doctor mentioned to us that we (Americans) were virtually immune to Leprosy, and in a moment of faith I didn't know I had, I took her hand and welcomed her to our clinic.

Christ did that for me. He reached into my diseased and unclean world, and took my hand. He let me know that though I was an outcast, I was welcome in His kingdom.

Who am I to refuse that to others?

I had to take her hand …she's just like me.