Richard Ralph Gill

Richard Ralph Gill was born to Beulah M. and Warner E. Gill on April 28, 1943 in Decatur, Illinois. When he was two years old, his parents were told to prepare to place him in an institution for the severely mentally retarded. At the persistence of his mother they refused to do so. When he was four years old, he was finally diagnosed as having severe Cerebral Palsy.

In 1949 Richard entered the first grade in one of the state’s rooms for the disabled. In 1953 he moved into a Catholic boarding school for three years of intensive physical rehabilitation. Once again it was one of the few like it in the country. In 1958 he attended the state’s first room for the disabled in a high school. He was consistently on the Honor Role. That same year he was elected President of the nation’s first Junior Achievement Company for the disabled. In 1961 he became the state’s first student educated under its Special Education Program to be inducted into the National Honor Society. That same year he graduated from high school.

That same year Richard moved with his parents to Tucson, Arizona. He enrolled at the University of Arizona. When he had completed one semester, the Arizona Rehabilitation Services told him to just forget ever graduating from college because he was too handicapped. His mother was determined that Richard would get a college education. On the first day of class he would give his professors a note requesting a student who took notes. Only the best students would volunteer. He would supply that student with carbon paper and plain paper. Another student would push him to his next class, or his mother would take him. He met his first grade teacher there. She was completing her doctorate degree. She had Richard lecture on Cerebral Palsy to her Special Education Class.

In 1964 Richard moved with his parents to Phoenix, Arizona. He enrolled at the Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. In 1967 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management. He came within seventeen hundredths of a point of graduating with Honor. In 1969 he attended Arizona Bible School for one semester.

In 1964 Richard flew to New York City for possible brain surgery. The doctors placed him on a muscle relaxant and told him to return in a year. He returned as scheduled in 1965. Once again the physicians insisted on surgery. Just hours before the surgery he reminded the surgeon that he didn’t want to gamble any of his assets, especially his speech, simply for the better use of his right arm. The surgeon told him he had to make a phone call. Richard and his mother claimed James 1:5 asking God for divine wisdom. People across the nation had been praying for God’s wisdom also. When the doctor had returned, he said he had canceled the surgery without giving any explanation. Eight years later another neurosurgeon told Richard that the surgery he would have undergone was never successful on Cerebral Palsy persons. He said that if he would have had the surgery, he probably would have lost his speech as well as almost all muscle control.

After getting his college education he did various volunteer work. He initiated and organized the first summer short term for college youth at Bethany Bible Church. For several years he served on various missions committees. One year he was appointed Chairman of the Mission Council and served on the Church Council. He did substitute teaching for many Sunday school classes. In 1973 he did Christian Service Assignment Evaluations for Arizona College of the Bible.

Richard gave inspirational messages in various churches and schools. He was best known for his series on The Role of Weakness in the Christian Life. People especially appreciated his acrostic of the word “Handicap.” By changing the “I”, meaning “Independence of God”, to a “Y”, meaning “Yieldedness to Christ,” a person becomes a “Handy Tool” in God’s hand. In 1975 he started the Phoenix Chapter of the Christian League for the Handicapped and served as its President for a few years.

In 1977 Richard met Donna May Christner, through a mutual friend, and they were united in marriage on April 3, 1982. In 1988 they suffered the loss of their baby Jewel R. Gill through a miscarriage. Upon marrying Donna he joined Grace Mennonite Church where he also served in various leadership positions from to time.

He had quite a sense of humor. His greatest laughter came from the responses of other people to his handicap. He liked to tell of the time when someone asked if he had mononucleosis. He felt like replying, “Yes, and it’s quite contagious!” Another time an elderly dignified woman having the palsy spilled a half cup of freshly-brewed hot coffee on his lap, saying, ‘’Oh, bless you my boy!” After she said it again, she was so shaken by then that she proceeded to spill the remaining cup of coffee. He often quipped, “That was when I received my second blessing!” He also said, “The fellowship was certainly warm, and it was quite a sensational experience!” Another time a man asked his mother, “Is he aware of what’s going on?” He felt like turning to the man and saying, “No, but I wonder if you are aware of what’s going on!” Once the church janitor, Menno Coblentz, asked the Sunday School Class, “What will we do when we get to heaven?” Richard replied, “I’m going to burn rubber on the streets of gold, and you’re going along behind me crawling on your hand and knees to clean it up.” That was Richard’s way of saying “Heaven is incompressible.”

On February 13, 1950 Richard accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord at home after listening to Wendell P. Loveless on WMBI from Chicago. His mother once again explained the way of salvation and then led him in the sinner’s prayer. When he was in the fourth grade, his schoolteacher recommitted her life to Christ due to his influence. When he was ten he moved into a Catholic boarding school for three years of intensive physical rehabilitation. Four of the other residents professed Christ as Savior before he was forbidden to witness for his Lord. That was about twelve years before the Vatican Council. In the ninth grade he led one of his classmates to a saving faith in Christ. In August 1956 he was baptized and joined Temple Baptist Church.

When he moved to Tucson, Arizona, he joined the First Baptist Church and served as Chairman of the College Class Constitution Committee. On February 20, 1963 he read the booklet The Life That Wins by Charles Trumbull. He then realized that Christ wanted to live His life in and through Richard rather than his futile attempts to live for Christ. This fact revolutionized the rest of his life.

Upon moving to Phoenix, Arizona in 1964 he joined Bethany Bible Church. In 1966 he gave his life to Christ’s ministry after Dr. John Mitchell’s message “Moses: The Man Who Underrated God.” He realized that God wanted to use his life with his handicap and that God in His Sovereignty and Grace had given him his handicap to be used in divine service to God. Due to his speech impediment, he identified with Moses, who was “slow of speech.”

His favorite books of the Bible were Psalms, John, Romans, Ephesians, and Philippians. His favorite Bible chapters were Psalms 34, and 139, John 15, Romans 5 and 8, Ephesians 1 and 2, Philippians 2, and 4. His number one life’s verse was Philippians 3:10 & 11. He especially appreciated the Kenneth S. West expanded translation: “That I might come to know Him in an experiential way, and the power of His resurrection, being made conformable unto His death, and come to know by experience the power of His resurrection and a joint-participation in His sufferings, being brought to the place where my life will radiate a likeness to His death.” A close second life’s passage was 2 Corinthians 12:9-10: “He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that the Christ’s power of Christ may rest upon me.’ That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then He is strong.”(NIV) A third life’s verse was Philippians 4:13: A third favorite verse was “I can do everything through Him who gives me the strength.”(NIV) A fourth favorite verse was 2 Corinthians 9:8 was: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all suffiency in all things, may have in abundance for every good work.’’ His favorite Bible characters were Moses, Peter, and Paul. His favorite hymns were “Like a River Glorious,” “Down from His Glory,” “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” “Marvelous Grace,” “He Giveth More Grace,’’ “It is Well With My Soul,” “How Great Thou Art,” “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” “ Have Thine Own Way, Lord,” “More Than Wonderful,” “Nothing Is Impossible,” “His Name Is Wonderful,” “Because He Lives,” “All That Thrills My Soul Is Jesus,” and “Majesty.” He enjoyed discussing theology, and his favorite subjects were God’s Sovereignty, God’s Grace, and Eternal Security.

His parents, a baby, Jewel R., and his sister Eileen J. Stokes, preceded Richard in death. He is survived by his wife Donna.

Richard was ushered into the presence of his Lord on December 29, 2015.