Pastor Pays It Forward

By ABC-7 Reporter Veronique Masterson

EL PASO, Texas — She’s someone who would give everything she had to help a person in need. Now Reverend Berthola House is giving a little independence to one El Paso woman she met while at the flea market last weekend.

The woman’s husband tells ABC-7 she’s been paralyzed from the waist down for 3 years.

Reverend House explains, “I had passed them and I turned the chair around and caught up with them. And I said, ‘You know I have a power chair.’ I said, ‘Would you like to have it?’ And he said, ‘Sure, sure!'”

We first met Reverend House in December after someone stole her motorized wheelchair while she was out delivering toys on Christmas. A local medical supplies store saw her story and gave the reverend a new chair.

Not too long after, Medicare gave her this chair. She says she wanted to give the other chair to someone who needed it.

A gesture many call, ‘Paying It Forward’. “I just let the chair sit. I said, ‘Eventually, I’ll run into somebody.'”

That somebody turned out to be a complete stranger. “It really didn’t matter. The point is, there was a need. And I wanted to meet that need.”

Reverend House says she understands what it’s like to feel trapped. “It was terrible. It was terrible. Now, I can jump in my chair, me and my dog, go on down to the store, come rain or shine however I feel like going. I don’t have to ask no body. I just go!”

She feels she was able to give that woman a little freedom. “Oh, she loved it. She loved it.”

Through much of it little Rusty, her Chihuahua-terrier mix has been by her side. Both are already gathering toys to hand out this Christmas. “You know when you’re serving God, it’s something that comes automatically.”

We tried to speak with the woman who received Reverend House’s chair but she didn’t return our phone calls.