Church 'uplifts' members

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Photo by Rowynn Ricks

July 3, 2008

The SURE Foundation Church of God has a new method of lifting up its members.

The church recently installed a chair-lift to help its members get up the stairs in its two-story building, which is located on the corner of 5th Street and Texas Avenue.

“We have some older people that come to church who cannot make it up our steps,” said pastor JoAnn Kirkham, noting that some members actually stopped attending because physical limitations made it impossible for them to make it up the stairs without special assistance.

“It was a real burden for us not to be able to provide for them and to watch them struggle up the steps,” Kirkham said.

It was a burden that the church had faced ever since it first began meeting at the building approximately 20 years ago, she said.

For many of those years the church leaders have sought a solution, considering everything from installing a one-person elevator, which would have cost around $40,000, to renting out a new building.

“But none of that worked because we didn’t have the money,” said church secretary Ruth Baker. “We’re a small, poor church.”

However in May of this year, Kirkham finally stumbled across the answer when talking with one of the church members who had had a chair-lift installed in her home to help with transporting her mother up and down the basement stairs in case of a storm.

Hearing the woman’s story, the pastor said she realized that a similar lift is exactly what the church had needed for so many years.

On May 12, after reading over information that the church member had brought by about the chair-lift, Kirkham said the church immediately began to raise funds.

By the end of evening services that Sunday, the church had raised $1,000 toward the cost of the chair. And by the end of the week, they had another $1,600.

“Within the month we had the chair paid for,” she said, noting that the church members who had contributed were “some of the best people for giving that you’ll ever see.”

And within six weeks, on June 25, the lift system was installed.

Now that the church finally has a way to help its physically-limited members, Baker and Kirkham said they “feel blessed.”

The chair-lift “enhances the ministry of our church,” Kirkham said.

“It provides a lot better way to serve our people and the community,” Baker said.

Besides installing the chair-lift, which is located in the stairwell on the west side of the building, the church has also designated three handicapped parking spaces on the west side to make access that much easier for patrons.

For more information about the chair-lift, contact the church at (580) 256-8289.

“If they would like to see how it works, just give us a call,” Baker said. “We’ll be glad to show them.”