The Reverend Virginia Kreyer was also honored at the banquet when it was announced that at General Synod 23 in 2001 a new award, called the “Kreyer Award” will be presented to her. The award will be presented to persons who have shown a pioneering spirit in the work of the UCCDM (this award will not be given at every Synod).

The UCC Disabilities Ministries (UCCDM) presence was prominent in a number of ways . . . an awards luncheon, a workshop, the UCCDM and Mental Illness Network (MIN) booths in the exhibit hall, and the Local Church Ministries dinner with the presentation of the first Virginia Kreyer Award to its namesake. This new award honors persons who have been “true pioneers,” providing leadership inside and outside the church and furthering the day when persons with disabilities will be full partners and contributors within church and society.

With the awarding of the Kreyer Award, a defining moment in the life of the UCCDM, the foundation-laying and disabilities-ministries-building by our foremother and prophet, Virginia Kreyer, is recognized. The Rev. Thomas E. Dipko, retired former Executive Vice-President, United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, introduced her with the following words:

“Virginia, beloved sister in Christ: Decades before contemporary authors reminded us that the God we worship came among us in the broken body of Jesus Christ, you were a “pioneering, prophetic, persevering” witness to the disabled God in whose image and likeness we are all made.

“Your ordination to Christian Ministry almost fifty years ago challenged the prevailing attitude of church and society that for so long rendered persons with disabilities invisible . . . you taught us anew the wisdom of St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians, ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.’ And lest any of us yield to the base temptations of pride and paternalism, you said to us with transparent eloquence, ‘There is a ministry of the disabled to church and humanity. Our presence is a reminder that Christ was a suffering servant.’

“Virginia, no one who has ever been in the same room with you would ever describe you as invisible! When you set your chin a certain way and look the insensitive in the eyes with your vision of things yet to be, even indifferent hearts melt. Your influence is felt across this land and around the world. From the splendid accessibility of Lincoln Center in Manhattan to the simple barrier free rural church in Iowa to the Amistad Chapel at Church House in Cleveland, your signature of compassion is not only carved in brick and mortar, it throbs in the welcoming heart to which they testify.

“A grateful church rejoices in the creation of the Virginia Kreyer Award for Disabilities Ministries. We are pleased and honored that you are its first distinguished recipient. May it remind you all the days that God shall give you that you are loved beyond words by the United Church of Christ.”

Virginia Kreyer responded,

“When I was a teenager, I felt as if I wanted to do work for the church but wondered how God could use a person with poor speech and a disability. When I arrived at Union Theological Seminary, I asked a very dear minister friend, as follows: ‘Do you really feel that there is a place of service for me within the church?’ Very slowly he said, ‘I really do not know’.”

“The next few weeks were very difficult for me. I spent much time in prayer, and then one morning at chapel, I felt God place his hand upon my shoulder and say, ‘I have called YOU, and I will use YOU. You are not going to question this calling again’…Then in 1971 I became a member of this denomination. You put me to work, and I thank you. I thank the entire denomination and above all I thank God for calling me and using me and for allowing me to be a servant of the Lord. Thank you.”

From UCC DM Newsletter Archive