Offices and Preschool:
7290 Lexington Drive (map)
Colorado
Springs, CO 80918
Church Office-Phone: 719.590.1705
Fax: 719.590.1767
Preschool-Phone: 719.219.0018
Worship Times: 8:45 & 10:30
Testimonies
RT Merced’s Story
[NOTE: Cerebral palsy is a condition that is caused by the umbilical cord getting wrapped around the neck, which causes severe hemorrhaging at birth. It can also be caused by a serious fall or blow on the back of the head, such as in a car accident. Cerebral palsy can be life threatening.]
My name is Robert Todd Merced, and they call me “RT.” I was born in December, 1967, in Pasadena, Texas. I was born with cerebral palsy. The doctors told my mother that I wouldn’t live past the age of twelve. But God sustained my life. When I was four, I was confined to a wheelchair until I was nine. Then I took my first step at the age of ten. But I was walking on braces and crutches until the age of thirteen. Then I had multiple surgeries on my left leg. The amount of surgeries I have sustained is ten.
I have a good godly background. My mother taught me about God and what he stood for. When I was in high school, my local church was praying for me, because the doctors again told my mother that I would not survive. My mother got down on her knees and prayed to God. God told her that I would not only survive, but live a long and productive life. I have now lived longer than the average cerebral palsy patient. (The average life span of a cerebral palsy patient is 21 years.)
Between the ages of six and ten, I could not speak any words. My mother could not understand the way I spoke, but my brother could understand. So when I tried to tell on him, he would make something else up. I used a typewriter to communicate with most people. A speech therapist at elementary school helped me. She assigned me to read the dictionary out loud.
At the age of fourteen, I was in the hospital for about six months because of the type of surgery they had to do on me. My mother would come and visit me on a daily basis. I was paralyzed in my left leg for about four years. I was confined to wheelchairs, braces, crutches, more braces, and then nothing at all. For several years, I walked with no extensions from any type of equipment. I was upright even though I was born with my left leg three inches shorter than my right. I walked without any extensions for thirteen years.
At the age of sixteen, I joined the Boy Scouts. When I turned seventeen, I earned the rank of Eagle. My Eagle project was to referee mentally retarded kids in football games. My second project for the rank of Eagle was to do public service in showing people how to wrap injured limbs.
When I was seventeen, I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Bi-polar disorder is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It causes delusions and shakiness and a very bad anger problem, which I don’t have any more. I am presently in therapy for this.
I graduated from high school with honors. In college, since I was not able to write due to tremors, I used a lap-tap computer to do my school work. Then I graduated from college.
When I was 21, I moved to Colorado on my own. My mother wasn’t worried about me because she gave me to God. I went and applied with an accountant. I filed taxes, did some bookkeeping, did some errands, did some paper-work, and filled out forms, all on a computer.
Then the cerebral palsy took a turn for the worse. That’s the reason why I walk with a walker. I can’t keep my balance any more. As I get older, the cerebral palsy is getting worse, and now it is almost life threatening.
I have had seizures all my life since I was little. (A seizure occurs when the brain malfunctions and electrons skip from where they need to go.) Some seizures are cured by medication, but some of them are not. I myself have experienced both sides of the coin. I am on medication for the seizures. With these seizures, Satan is trying to knock me off, but the Lord is not done with me yet. He has sustained me.
The happiest day of my life was when I got saved in 1986. That was after I graduated high school. When I decided to get baptized, I conferred not only with God, but with my mother and my family. Not everyone in my family is saved, but I knew it was the right thing to do because of the Holy Spirit.
And now the Lord has also given me a new home. I was looking for a church for about three years. I finally found me a new home, not only in heaven, but here in this church with all of you wonderful brothers and sisters. I have never been welcomed the way I have in this church. In one church
, they would ignore me and put me in a corner to sit by myself. I see people in churches really making a mockery out of their church. People like myself have been excluded not only in churches, but also in public. In public, people look at me with wonder and curiosity in their eyes, because they don’t understand about my condition.
In my hands there are spasms caused by the cerebral palsy, and people sometimes make fun of me. But my logic is that they are making fun of God, because I am his creation. I have been walking with God closely for about twenty years. I fully believe that God has not only restored me, but he has given me a new life. I don’t look down on myself. I always look ahead, because the Lord has ordained me to witness to people like yourselves, and teach you that anything is possible with God. A valuable experience I have is working with God and spreading the Word. I have been doing that since I was a teenager.
I am now forty-one years old. I don’t know how long I have on this earth. All I know is that when God calls, I will be ready. I feel like a stranger in a foreign land, I don’t belong here. I am an angel in a foreign land. May God be with you all and bless you.
Love,
Your brother, RT
