Even though he has no sight, Shane Jackson of Grace Covenant Baptist Church, Vestavia, can see how each piece of the puzzle has formed the big picture of the task to which God has called him.
Jackson’s vision is to provide the gospel in an accessible form to blind and visually impaired people throughout the world.
“I am most passionate about the fact that God’s Word will finally reach those hundreds of thousands of blind people who have never heard it before,” he said.
Jackson is the technological director of the Gospel Light Foundation for the Blind, a nonprofit organization based in Loganville, Ga., that offers a free lending library of more than 3,000 recordings of Christian books, lectures and sermons to the blind community. These recordings are available on cassette, CD, DVD, digital audio and in braille.
“We do anything that facilitates the spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us,” said Jackson, who teamed up with Gospel Light in late 2005 after learning of the ministry by word of mouth.
He may count his blessings of what God has done, but he is no stranger to the hardships of being blind from birth in a sighted world. One such difficulty for a blind believer is that a typical braille Bible is composed of 13 binders — each 3 inches in size.
“A sighted person just can’t understand — no matter how hard he or she may try — the complexities of a blind culture,” he said.
That’s why Jackson and his wife, Abby, speak to churches about how to recognize the needs of blind people.
“A lot of [blind people] feel left out and like they’ve been forgotten. … They’re not taught how to communicate with people so they sit at home,” said Abby Jackson, financial specialist for Gospel Light.
One of the Jacksons’ primary tasks with Gospel Light is to speak to churches about their ministry and practical ways to minister to the blind. “Shane likes to demonstrate the equipment that we use — how the blind can be on the Internet, how to use a computer without a screen and materials that allow them to follow along with the Bible at church,” she said.
Knowing that the possibility of ever gaining the ability to see is slim, Shane Jackson said, “If that opportunity ever comes, I doubt I will take it. I feel that in order to do this type of ministry, you really have to be blind.”
Bill Keathley, director of Gospel Light, is also blind, but he knows what it is like to be able to see. During his senior year of high school, he was diagnosed with a paralyzing arthritis that landed him in a wheelchair and eventually took his sight.
“I wallowed in despair and self-pity for several years, but through the witness of my brother, who had just professed faith in Christ, I was caused to reconsider my spiritual condition,” Keathley said.
After he began losing his sight during his junior year of college, Keathley began to study a braille Bible.
“God began to reveal more and more of the precious truths of Scripture to me,” he said. “I became burdened with a desire to serve the Lord in spite of my physical disabilities.”
Gospel Light, which is funded solely by the financial contributions of donors, began in 1982 as a result of that desire.
“We found that it was very rare for Baptist or evangelical churches to have any kind of ministry or outreach to the blind,” Keathley said. “It has been our purpose to make churches aware of this much-neglected missions field and to provide them with the specialized knowledge and assistance that it takes to reach the blind with the light of the glorious gospel of Christ.”
Now having produced thousands of publications, including two braille Bible correspondence courses, Gospel Light has reached the blind community in Canada, England, Cuba, India, Brazil, China, west Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Malawi, Kenya and the United States. And now having Shane Jackson as a part of the technical aspect of Gospel Light’s ministry, Gospel Light hopes to transfer its recorded materials to a digital format in order to take advantage of distribution through the Internet.
“I intend to keep going at it, and I can’t wait to see what God will do with our ministry as the years go by,” Shane Jackson said.
For more information, visit www.glfb.org.
EDITOR’S NOTE — The Alabama Baptist is provided on tape for those who are blind or have trouble reading the paper. For more information, contact Charleen Hobbs at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 231, or e-mail chobbs@alsbom.org.
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