By: Ed Sywyk
Four times a year I must travel to Port Credit and wait about four to five hours while a special eye drop is created from my blood. This drop is a new technique my doctor heard about. It was last November when I ran out and had to go again. After drawing 16 vials of blood the waiting began.
It was a chilly day, so I decided to sit in a library until the technician called. As I stared out the window, my thoughts turned to the past.
It was 2014, I had been lying around the house for three weeks waiting for my right eye to heal from another operation.
I was worried about money so I finally convinced the eye doctor to let me go back to work. I knew “no work equals no money.”
Of course my priorities and my emotions were all mixed up. I was ignoring my health issues, and I wasn’t trusting in God’s provision.
“Where are you God?” I asked. “Please help me get through this difficult period. I have lost so much time off work, so please bless me and make all things good again.” God is good and He did answer my prayer, just not in the way I expected.
A few days after I returned to work, my employer declared I was a “safety hazard”. Reluctantly, I was forced to take an early retirement. Even my union steward believed my best option was to accept their offer. I knew my eye-sight was still deteriorating. I also knew the company’s decision was justified, but I was still caught off guard and I was angry. I didn’t think my boss understood the difficulties I was having while I performed my duties.
Life felt like one problem after another.
My first priority: get another job as soon as possible. That proved harder than I expected. I tried applying to other places, but with my obvious vision lost, nobody wanted to hire me. Then my drivers licence was revoked because I failed the visual field test. (A routine eye test used to assess your perception of your peripheral vision). Where are you God?
Then someone encouraged me to contact the C.N.I.B. and it wasn’t too long after I called that a counsellor came down and assessed me.
“I am legally blind,” she told me. Then she began to teach me how to live with my sight impairment. I applied to Ontario Disability Support Program and also purchased some devices and other equipment that helped me.
My outlook brightened.
I also attended a monthly support program. There I became friends with Stephen, Marie, Terry and a few others. It was during one of those sessions when I heard about a knitting class forming. It was my new friend, Stephen’s idea.
So, some of us came to his first class. Although Stephen was blind since birth, his sighted sister decided 30 years ago to show him how to knit. Knitting became his passion, and with all that experience, he wanted to share it with others.
Stephen took the time to teach me how to knit. He placed his hands over mine, guiding them while he explained the process. Knitting became a joy for me too. I practiced over and over again until I felt confident. How many people can say, they were taught how to knit by a blind man?
We started meeting in the conference room of the C.N.I.B. building. There were times when nobody was there to let us in. For those times, we held our class at Williams
Coffee House in the Eaton’s Mall. Eventually we had to find some other place to meet.
That’s when I thought about asking if we could meet at Central.
The following Wednesday we held our next class in the church.
After Covid 19, our knitting class returning with a few changes. We are now “The Gospel Knitters,” and our membership has grown from three to nine members.
When Stephen began having health issues I took over the leadership of the class.
Not only do we love knitting for ourselves, but we knit for the Alzheimer’s Association and for the Brantford General Hospital.
I thank God for His provision. Each one of the Gospel Knitters are part of His family. The best change we made was extending our class to two hours. In our first hour we knit as always but our second hour is dedicated to walking with Our Lord.
We spend twenty minutes in His Word followed by praying for one another.
If our class appeals to you, bring your knitting project and come to the church each Wednesday morning at 10 o’clock. Our purpose statement is found in Colossians 2:2. “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ.” (NKJV)
