Please take a minute to read this important message:
In my previous message, I told how at age 15, while taking care of lawns at an apartment complex, God gave me a vision: I saw a map of the Soviet Union in the sky and a voice said: "Remember this apartment complex plan - you'll build it when you're an old man." After serving behind the Iron Curtain and in Russia for 20 years, leading a small mission support agency for 20 years, and teaching online in Russian seminaries for 10 years, I'm now in my upper-70s, so I guess I'm old enough to start this new project!
I wrote earlier about our *free* 1-year, 6-course training program "Social Ministry of the Church" in English and Russian to train people how to care for the sick and disabled. The purpose of these courses is to prepare people for "Building the ARC" - an Agape Restoration Community - a Christian housing co-op with a built-in community room/chapel. Most of the units will be wheelchair-accessible because of the aging of the "Baby Boomer" generation: 76 million people born between 1946 and 1965 have reached or are reaching retirement age (10,000/day = 3,650,000/year!), at which time 45% of these people are already disabled.
And as they continue aging, 70% of them will become disabled and require accessible housing or home healthcare before they pass away. This is a huge social concern: 70% of 3,650,000 people = 2,550,000 disabled people per year for the next 20 years = over 50 million people! About 2/3 of all retirees depend on Social Security for over half of their income, and about 1/3 of retirees depend on it for 90% to 100% of their income. But can they continue depending on it? Medicare will be insolvent by 2026 and Social Security will reach insolvency by 2034, the trustees of these funds report, so they will have to cut 'way back: they won't be able to care for all these people at current levels. We need to "Think Forward" ... starting now!
Our basic problem, however, is that like most people, we don't want to think about such things until it's too late. Psychologists call this "the normalcy bias" - our brains work in terms of past experience, so we assume that everything will simply keep on going on "just like normal" as it has in the past. As King David wrote - "Their inward thought is that their houses will endure forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They name their lands after themselves. But man, despite his riches, doesn't endure. He is like the animals that perish" (Psalm 49:11-12). In everyday layman's language it's called "whistling past the graveyard." We don't want to think about unpleasant things such as growing old, disability, and death... so when it happens, we're unprepared and too feeble to respond adequately, thus we become a burden on the government. But some states are already passing laws allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide to conserve public finances. So it's imperative that we as Christians be proactive and retake our social ministry responsibilities!
Christ commanded His disciples to "Bring in the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, go into the highways and the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that My house may be full" (Luke 14:21-23). This defines our ultimate target audience and our goal, but how can we "compel them to come in" unless they can come in? Why aren't the churches full? In many cases the "maimed, the lame and blind" can hardly get out of their homes, and getting transported to church is difficult or flat-out impossible.
Most homes, condo and townhouse communities in our greater Pittsburgh area, on the northern edge of the Allegheny Mountains, have at least 1/2 to 1 flight of stairs, often 2 or 3 flights, creating a nearly-insurmountable problem for people with disabilities. Our hearts go out to the 6% of children who are disabled! But 16% of working-age adults and 45% of seniors have disabilities too. 16% + 45% = 61% of disabled people are adults: only 1/10th as many (6%) are children, so shouldn't we pay a bit more attention to those ten-times-as-many disabled adults?
Also, many church buildings aren't very wheelchair-accessible. Solution: "Build the ARC": this is a 12-living-unit building that forms an accessible, affordable Christian housing co-op including a community room/chapel, with most living units being wheelchair-accessible by including a ramp from the entrance, plus there are parking spaces just outside wide enough for wheelchair use right next to the building. And our "Social Ministry of the Church" courses will train the healthier residents as "home healthcare workers" to care for those who need it.
Why not an elevator or a stair lift? In an emergency such as a fire or when the electricity goes out or the elevator breaks, they could be trapped if depending on an elevator or a stair lift. Disabled people can't use the stairs and it's awfully hard to carry them in a wheelchair down the stairs – we've learned that the hard way! With most older couples it's the man who ages first and becomes disabled: he very likely weighs more than his wife who often injures her back or knees trying to lift or carry him. Also, we've met many older people – able-bodied and disabled – who have been trapped in an elevator so now refuse to ride them, but some are too disabled to use stairs. Armed with such experiences, we aim to change the built environment for these people!
We've been functioning since 1998 as Agape Restoration Society, a donor-advised fund of WaterStone.org, a foundation through which people can channel their benevolent donations but only to other non-profits; also, they charge us a processing fee for each donation. So in 2017, we incorporated as Agape Restoration Society Inc., an IRS-recognized non-profit corporation, so that we can disburse funds to for-profit architects and builders. We are listed with Charity Navigator and GuideStar. Here are our sketches for the proposed building. Enroll in our free courses to see how YOU can do diakonia-ministry. And Join "The ARC" Chat/Video Forum to Build the ARC!
Can you help us? What we really need is for 500 or 1,000 or 2,000 people to Help Us Raise a Crowd of Followers, or to Chip In at one of these levels by going to our DONATE page and signing up for: $100/month for 10 months: that's $1,000 - a huge help, or $50/month for 10 months: that's $500 - a great gift, or $25/month for 10 months: that's $250 - a big boost, or $10/month for 10 months: that's $100 - practically painless!
Will you be praying for and pulling for us in this project? Thanks for your time and attention, if you've read this far!
In my previous message, I told how at age 15, while taking care of lawns at an apartment complex, God gave me a vision: I saw a map of the Soviet Union in the sky and a voice said: "Remember this apartment complex plan - you'll build it when you're an old man." After serving behind the Iron Curtain and in Russia for 20 years, leading a small mission support agency for 20 years, and teaching online in Russian seminaries for 10 years, I'm now in my upper-70s, so I guess I'm old enough to start this new project!
Most homes, condo and townhouse communities in our greater Pittsburgh area, on the northern edge of the Allegheny Mountains, have at least 1/2 to 1 flight of stairs, often 2 or 3 flights, creating a nearly-insurmountable problem for people with disabilities. Our hearts go out to the 6% of children who are disabled! But 16% of working-age adults and 45% of seniors have disabilities too. 16% + 45% = 61% of disabled people are adults: only 1/10th as many (6%) are children, so shouldn't we pay a bit more attention to those ten-times-as-many disabled adults?
Why not an elevator or a stair lift? In an emergency such as a fire or when the electricity goes out or the elevator breaks, they could be trapped if depending on an elevator or a stair lift. Disabled people can't use the stairs and it's awfully hard to carry them in a wheelchair down the stairs – we've learned that the hard way! With most older couples it's the man who ages first and becomes disabled: he very likely weighs more than his wife who often injures her back or knees trying to lift or carry him. Also, we've met many older people – able-bodied and disabled – who have been trapped in an elevator so now refuse to ride them, but some are too disabled to use stairs. Armed with such experiences, we aim to change the built environment for these people!