By Melonie McLaurin

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ROCKINGHAM — When a wish-granter, a cancer patient in need and a hands-on church ministry come together, miracles happen.

Earlier this week, Beatrice Biggs Parker — a Rockingham woman who lives to make sick people’s wishes come true — discovered a friend she visited was living in sparse conditions in an unfurnished single-wide trailer off Battley Dairy Road in the Wolf Pit Township.

“Her husband died a couple of years ago,” Parker said. “And she’s got cancer and she’s been sleeping on the floor. She hasn’t got any furniture in there.”

After hearing of the woman’s plight, the Rev. Joe Wilkes of Abundant Life Church on School Street in Rockingham took immediate action.

“The COW is overflowing with donations from the community,” Wilkes said, referring to a Container-on-Wheels mobile storage unit. “God has truly blessed us and continues to bless us. Whatever we have that she needs, you tell her to come pick it out and we will deliver it. We don’t have a bed in there, but we’ll get one.”

The two made an appointment for noon Friday, and Parker brought the woman to the church to select items for her home. Among necessities she had been living without was a bed, and just as promised, Wilkes provided one.

“Ours is an active ministry,” Wilkes said. “No one should live like that. When we hear about people in need, we do what needs to be done to help. We’ve paid a few hotel bills recently after needy families ran out of time getting them paid by the Red Cross. And we have a handicapped, disabled and elderly ministry, too. We’ve got a van with a wheelchair lift.”

Wilkes said last weekend, ministry volunteers drove out and picked up people from rest homes, disabled people at their own homes and handicapped people and took them to see a fireworks show he said they immensely enjoyed.

“And next we’re going to be picking them up again and bringing them here for an ice cream social,” he said.

Wilkes said his church vans are not limited to helping only people who attend Abundant Life.

“We picked up a woman who goes to another church, took her there, then went back and picked her up and took her home,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Our ministry helps anyone who needs it. It doesn’t matter what church they go to.”

To contact Abundant Life Church, call 910-410-0544 or pay a visit at 139 School St. in Rockingham.

Reach reporter Melonie McLaurin at 910-817-2673 and follow her on Twitter @meloniemclaurin.

Melonie McLaurin | Daily Journal The Rev. Joe Wilkes and volunteers from Abundant Life Church of Rockingham unload a church van full of furniture to the home of a Richmond County woman who had none.
https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_IMG_3417.jpgMelonie McLaurin | Daily Journal The Rev. Joe Wilkes and volunteers from Abundant Life Church of Rockingham unload a church van full of furniture to the home of a Richmond County woman who had none.
Ministry furnishes woman’s home

By Melonie McLaurin

[email protected]