Senior Pastor of Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) in London, Rev. Matthew Ashimolowo has spoken that it is a great privilege to serve people with disabilities in such an hour and the best way to define their existence is to reach out to them. 

He uttered that disabled persons also play a key role in national development therefore walking away from them is not an interpretation of good faith among Christians.

“To bring more than 10,000 disabled people to one place requires all kinds of skills and abilities. It’s an eye opener, a great privilege to be able to serve these people and to be able to patiently touch them and to let them know that they are very important people. So it’s a great joy to be here,” he said.

The Charismatic Evangelistic Ministry Centre of Employment for Persons of Disability on Friday, November 15, 2019 presented numerous items to incapacitated men and women from different suburbs within and outside Kumasi at the Heroes Park. Items such as wheel chairs, beds, mattresses, clothings, food, walking sticks and many assisting devices were donated as an act of goodwill to ease their way of life.

According to Pastor Ashimolowo, it has come to a time where Charismatic and Pentecostal churches need to come together and reliably sponsor the disabled rather than always seeking for miracles to happen when they are been approached. He advised that until such people receive their healing, it is the mandate of the church to take care of them to fulfill Christ's obligation.

“Many at times, we charismatic Pentecostal churches, we move away from these people because we just want to see miraculous healing. But you have to also understand that some directions of miraculous healing has to do with the Sovereignty of God. Until this man receives his miraculous healing, I will take care of him. I will give him wheel chair, food, drinks, buckets he needs. That is Christ to the rural world has done. These people are part of us, they are our brothers and sisters. What they feel, we feel. Their pain is our pain and their joy is our joy,” he said.

He expressed unhappiness and pleaded to the Ghanaian government that when organizations like 'Christ to the Rural World' are importing items to be distributed to the needy, the tariffs attached must be considered and lessened to encourage other bodies. He disclosed that the taxes charged on items offered to the needy were huge and affected the number of items they brought for distribution this year.

“When organizations are importing things, they should provide them special certificates of exemption. They have too many track record showing that whatever they bring is not for sale. It will shock you to know that every wheel chair that was brought in, I think there was something like $70 tax so instead of the 1,000 wheel chair brought in last year, they could only bring in 240 this year”

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“We want to appeal to our government to please realise that the church has chosen to be the hand, the eye and the leg o both Jesus and the country to touch these people. Many of them when they receive the things the way they pray and appreciate, they even think it’s the government using the church and they do not realise that this totally exceed the bod of Christ. So the government can help, nobody is gaining anything here but giving. Let them remove tariffs on some of the things that are been given here like wheel chairs and so on and so for,” he ended.

The former Ashanti Regional President of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organization, Mr. Prince Debrah expressed sincere gratitude to the stakeholders for relieving the plight of persons with disability in the region. He appealed to government to solve the further delayance in the common fund of the physically challenged to help them sustain living.

“Most of us does not have works to do so whiles they are out there, we need more because the discretion f the social welfare directors on distributing the items on money quota will not give as you want yet they say it’s a government money and must be shared in pieces.

“Its not really helping. We need proper amendment of the Disability Act on the sharing of the common fund so that they will understand our plight and needs in order to attend to each and everyone’s needs,” he ended.