Floyd and wife donate money for man's legs

[southsider2k5]

http://www.csnchicago.com/blog/whitesox-ta...tm_medium=email

 

Tim Smith, 24, needed two new legs, and they came with a price tag of $31,000. Smith was born with a rare genetic disorder that caused the deformity of not having legs.

 

His health insurance company refused to pay the bill, leaving Tim no choice but to use his old prosthetic legs which were being held together by duct tape. After donations from fellow students and faculty at Trinity College and congregants at Lake Baptist church raised $10,000, Smith still needed a significant chunk of change.

 

That's where White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd and his wife stepped up, reports Tampa Bay Online. Floyd heard about Smith through a relative and impressed with the young man's positive attitude, decided to donate the rest of the money he needed -- $21,000.

 

"We talked about it, prayed about it, and just felt led to do it," Floyd said. "To know what he's achieved in his life really moved us."

 

After making the donation, Floyd and his wife met Tim on the campus of Trinity. As if the donation wasn't enough, they brought Smith a signed jersey and baseball glove. Smith presented them with Trinity sweatshirts and a thank-you card. He also showed off his new prostheses and explained how he would no longer have to contend with blisters.

 

"I wish somebody was around to capture my emotions on camera, because I was ecstatic, I was in tears," Smith says. "I was so in love with God at that moment… it just blew my heart away."

[southsider2k5]

http://www2.tbo.com/lifestyles/life/2011/n...ty-s-ar-326650/

 

TRINITY --

 

He needed two new legs.

 

But the prospects looked dim for Tim Smith, 24, a college student with no insurance. The company that makes prosthetics told him a new pair would cost $31,000.

 

So his old legs, held together by duct tape and a prayer, would just have to do. Sometimes he felt like the Tin Man, oiling the joints so they wouldn't squeak when he walked. When he climbed mountains, went rock climbing, played softball and competed in Ultimate Frisbee, he just unstrapped them and moved swiftly on his stumps.

 

Then, unannounced, the angels came.

 

They arrived in the form of his fellow students and faculty at Trinity College, and his congregations at Jasmine Lakes Baptist Church in Port Richey and Fellowship Chapel in Flanders, N. J. Friends and strangers chipped in, too. In just four weeks, they raised $10,000.

 

A Major League Baseball pitcher and his wife, who make their home in Trinity in the off-season, heard about the upbeat athletic young man through a relative. Though they had never met him, they were impressed by stories of his fortitude. They wanted to help. We'll donate the rest, they offered.

 

Earlier this month, Tim got a gift made possible by all those supporters: state-of-the-art prostheses, lightweight and flexible, made by the same company that designed the prosthetic tail for Winter, the Clearwater dolphin of Hollywood fame. The attached shoes weigh more than the carbon fiber limbs that snap in snugly. They are decorated with images of majestic Bengal tigers, Trinity's school mascot.

 

Tim never thinks of himself as the misfit with the fake legs. Quite the opposite. This Thanksgiving, so far the best in his young life, he takes pause to reflect on just how grateful he is.

 

"People call this is a disability," he says. "I call it an ability to display the glory of God. He blessed me with this gift so I could see the goodness in people and in him. How lucky is that?"

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

He was her first baby. Judy Smith, weary from the delivery, tried to focus on the doctor through the haze.

 

"You have a beautiful little boy," he said. "But …"

 

Her child had no legs. It was a rare genetic disorder that caused the deformity, never exposed by several sonograms. Shocked, then frightened, the young mother burst into tears.

 

How did this happen? she thought. How will I raise such a child?

 

Turns out, she and her husband, Glenn, didn't have to worry about that. Young Timothy David, raised in Hopatcong, a sleepy little town in New Jersey, adapted in a way that only a child could. Since he never had legs, he didn't know what life was like with them. He scooted around on the stumps that stopped right below his knees.

 

It took Judy time to come to grips with her son's disability. But when she saw that nothing seemed to stop him – climbing trees, chasing balls – she accepted what could not be changed.

 

"We never treated him like he was handicapped, never," she says.

 

He got his first prostheses when he was 18 months. They were plastic and didn't bend, making his gait stilted and awkward. Most of the time, he didn't wear them. It never occurred to him that he was that different. He just needed those legs to make him taller.

 

But kids can be cruel. He got used to the occasional stare and finger-pointing when he was out in public. Most of the time, he just turned away. When Tim was around 12, he couldn't keep quiet about it anymore.

 

He was sitting on the edge of a public pool, cooling off his stumps, his legs sitting beside him. A boy across the way kept looking at him. Finally, an inner rage that had been building exploded.

 

"Take a picture, it lasts longer, jerk!" Tim shouted in anger. The boy's face grew red and he ran off.

 

In high school, it got worse. The popular kids were the good-looking ones. Being different was a deterrent, not a plus. The only place where he was accepted was on the wrestling team. He excelled in the sport, but when the season would end, he was an outcast again.

 

"I did not fit in. Nobody wanted to hang out with the kid with no legs. He was weird, he was awkward. He was disabled," Tim says.

 

He began rebelling against the Christian faith that was ingrained in his upbringing. If God was so perfect, why did he make such a mistake and let him be born this way? God wasn't just wrong, he was evil and malicious. When Tim did attend church, he sat in the back row, challenging a God he felt had abandoned him.

 

Show me the reason I'm different, he prayed. What is the purpose? Tim saw no reason for his existence. His anger and depression intensified.

 

Then Rev. Joe Walser came into his life.

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

Walser was the new minister at Friendship Chapel in Flanders, N.J. Tim was in community college by then, with failing grades and no focus for his future. He stopped by his pastor's house several times, staying for dinner with Walser, his wife and their children.

 

It wasn't Tim's disability that caught Walser's attention. It was Tim's big smile.

 

"I felt it was just a front, masking not only the physical trauma in his life, but the spiritual and emotional ones as well," Walser says. "It was obvious he was wrestling with his faith."

 

They had many late-night conversations about the Scriptures. They talked about overcoming bitterness and putting trust in the Lord. Tim moved to the front of the church and paid more attention to the sermons. The slow transition had begun in changing his heart from rebellion to one of service.

 

One Sunday, Walser preached on John 9. The story of the blind man who was healed of his sightlessness by Jesus made Tim consider his own situation. The works of God had been revealed through the man's handicap. He says it was in that moment he realized that he could use his lack of legs – and all that he was able to accomplish without them – as a faith testimony.

 

"I wanted science to fix me," he says. "But God had other plans. He wanted my life, and for me to do something with it."

 

Tim enrolled in Trinity College in fall 2008 to pursue his degree in biblical studies. He volunteers with the youth ministry at Jasmine Lakes Baptist Church and works summers as a team leader at a Christian camp in western New York. Best friend Daniel Rumeau, also a Trinity senior, says Tim is genuinely not burdened by his disability. He even makes light of it – leaving his prosthetic legs in elevators and sticking them out of car trunks.

 

"While others need to humble themselves before God and bow to their knees," Daniel says, "Tim believes he has been given a head start and is already there."

 

The kid who couldn't buy a friend in high school is one of the most popular people on campus. Trinity President Mark O'Farrell calls Tim "an absolute inspiration" to students, faculty and staff at the close-knit college. This year, Tim is serving as student government president, an experience he calls challenging and uplifting.

 

He's not sure where life will take him when he graduates in the spring; all he knows is that it will be in ministry. The legs will be part of his story.

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

In 22 years of practice, Addam Griner had never seen a case quite like Tim's.

 

He did his residency at Shriner's Hospital, which specializes in birth defects. That meant Griner, area practice manager for Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics, had seen plenty of extreme cases. Tim's congenital deformity stood out.

 

"What I couldn't believe is that he could be so active with what he was wearing," Griner says. "And he was so positive and enthusiastic about everything. We wanted to get him into something that was clinically and technologically up to date."

 

Hanger enlisted its A-team to develop a top-of-the-line prosthesis that uses a suction to grip the skin and a mechanical lock with a pin to hold it in place. His previous pair used joint and corset sockets with Velcro straps – "Definitely old school," Griner says.

 

Tim didn't want to count on the prostheses. The cost was prohibitive. He lived on a meager budget and had already taken out several student loans for college costs. But as the donations flowed in -- $2,000, $5,000 and finally $10,000 -- it became more of a reality.

 

It didn't take long for Chicago White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd and his wife, Leanna, to decide to pay the remaining $21,000.

 

Leanna's mother, a former math teacher at Trinity, raved about the student who took off his prosthetic legs to play soccer and softball. He's awesome, she said. He hustles all over the field. Imagine how much more he could do if he got those new and improved limbs.

 

"We talked about it, prayed about it, and just felt led to do it," Gavin Floyd says. "To know what he's achieved in his life really moved us."

 

The Floyds made the donation without ever having met Tim. Earlier this month, the couple came to campus to meet him for the first time. They brought a signed jersey and baseball glove; Tim brought Trinity College sweatshirts and a thank-you card. He gave them a demonstration of his new prostheses and told them he didn't have to contend with blisters anymore.

 

He told them his reaction to the news of their generosity.

 

"I wish somebody was around to capture my emotions on camera, because I was ecstatic, I was in tears," Tim says. "I was so in love with God at that moment … it just blew my heart away."

 

After meeting Tim, Leanna Floyd could not stop smiling.

 

"God has blessed us beyond our wildest dreams," she says. "He's put my husband and me in this position so we can help others. There is no better feeling than giving to someone else."

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

There was a time when Tim Smith thought something was wrong with him. He looked at his stumps and considered himself handicapped. He allowed himself to be consumed with self-pity.

 

Now he thinks of all the gifts that have come from being born with no legs. The people who have come into his life, the experiences he's had, the obstacles he's overcome, the joy he gets in sharing his testimony to inspire others. This Thanksgiving, more than ever, he is a grateful man.

 

"I see this as a blessing from the Lord," he says. "This prosthetic for me now serves as a reminder, a walking reminder, of God's faithfulness to provide."

 

Tim meets the Floyds for the first time in Michelle Bearden's "Keeping the Faith" at 5:30 p.m. Friday on WFLA-TV. To see a photo gallery, go to TBO.com, search: Tim Smith.

[Steve9347]

Nice story. Go Floyds.

[Texsox]

Great story.

[SoxAce]

This thread needs more love. Very nice story.

[rowand's rowdies]

Very nice story. Good for them.

 

However.......would you expect a lot of love if you gave $133 to someone for a surgery like this?

 

That's the same % of a person's income who makes $40,000 a year compared to Gavin who gets $7 mil per year giving $21,000.

 

It's very nice and all, but it's all relative. Not a story that needs to be trumpeted through the streets, but good to hear at the same time.

[southsider2k5]

Very nice story. Good for them.

 

However.......would you expect a lot of love if you gave $133 to someone for a surgery like this?

 

That's the same % of a person's income who makes $40,000 a year compared to Gavin who gets $7 mil per year giving $21,000.

 

It's very nice and all, but it's all relative. Not a story that needs to be trumpeted through the streets, but good to hear at the same time.

 

So when is the last time you gave $133 to a stranger based on a story like this? I think the exact opposite of you. I don't care what the dollar amount is, these are the types of stories we need to be giving big publicity to, instead of the stupid crap that gets obsessed about by the media. I know I'd rather read about this versus someone pepper spraying someone over a Black Friday deal.

[Jordan4life_2007]

All I know is I need a donation for a new liver. My s*** is shot.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Very nice story. Good for them.

 

However.......would you expect a lot of love if you gave $133 to someone for a surgery like this?

 

That's the same % of a person's income who makes $40,000 a year compared to Gavin who gets $7 mil per year giving $21,000.

 

It's very nice and all, but it's all relative. Not a story that needs to be trumpeted through the streets, but good to hear at the same time.

 

No it's not.$21,000 is $21,000. And he was a complete stranger. How many people would refuse to give just $10 to a complete stranger. Nothing to knock down this story at all should be put forth

[max power]

No it's not.$21,000 is $21,000. And he was a complete stranger. How many people would refuse to give just $10 to a complete stranger. Nothing to knock down this story at all should be put forth

Its neither as relative or as objective as either of you make it out to be.

[SoxAce]

All I know is I need a donation for a new liver. My s*** is shot.

 

[VictoryMC98]

All I know is I need a donation for a new liver. My s*** is shot.

 

If you take a teaspoon of Olive Oil straight, it helps to rebuild it... If you rebuild it, they will come.

[Quin]

Gotta love Gavin.

[VictoryMC98]

Gotta love Gavin.

 

off the field stuff yes

 

Between the diamond, not so much.

[SoxAce]

Gotta love Gavin.

 

You might only have a chance to love him in another month or two. Half kidding...

[southsider2k5]

You might only have a chance to love him in another month or two. Half kidding...

 

Forget half joking... If he leaves, he'll be a superstar again.