“I am disabled. For years that was so hard to admit. I couldn’t mention out loud my neurodivergence. I whispered about my post-traumatic stress disorder, insisting ‘I’m better now.’ I was a champion for the disabled who didn’t want to talk about her own disabilities. It was disingenuous, but I didn’t know how to come to terms with the fact that I was disabled. I was still scared that admitting my disability publicly would convince people I was not able to do anything.” Joanna French writes on her experience with disability.
Beth sits down with the always delightful Marie Kuck, who has a special invitation for our listeners for a behind-the-scenes tour of Make ‘m Smile in Orlando.
In today's episode, Sandra chats with Tracy McElhattan, PhD about how to apply universal design for learning principles to our children's ministry classes so everyone is included and engaged!
Mary Underwood writes about her experience in the Philippines, and trusting God with all of your cares.
In this episode, Lamar Hardwick examines how our theology influences disability ministry and how the experience of disability influences our understanding of God, faith, and life. We will talk about how understanding disability doesn’t begin with having all the right answers, but how understanding disability requires that we ask the right questions.
In recent years, significant focus has been directed towards states and localities hit the hardest by this nation’s opiod crisis. Per capita, there are more children available in the foster care system in opioid-impacted states. But in terms of sheer numbers of kids available and aging out of the foster care system, concentrated efforts in six large states would address more than a third of all foster care cases in the country.
The issue of “orphan care” has become rather en vogue within the Church — even to the point of having an “Orphan Sunday.” And that’s all good and well, but if we are not careful, the Church could be the crowd on the shore. But what if, instead of saying “we only know how to say jump,” the crowd had rushed to the end of the pier, with arms outstretched, yelling “Hang on! Help is on the way! Don’t lose hope!
Our church community didn’t know what we would need, but they said yes with us: yes to loving through the brokenness, yes to being faithful to the ones (me included) who need to learn to trust once again, yes to a bit more chaos in our row during worship, yes to choosing to do good for young ones for whom others hadn’t always chosen good in their recent past.
