Going to the Accessibility Summit?

If you'll be at the Accessibility Summit this weekend, leave a comment to let me know. I would LOVE to meet up!

(The Accessibility Summit is a "national conference is designed to offer a broad range of information and resources to individuals, families and caregivers, faith-based organizations, educators, and other professionals impacted by disability" hosted by McLean Bible Church. My church is sending me this year, and I couldn't be more excited! The registration is full for this year, but check the website for recordings from this year and information for next year. And check back here next week because I'll be posting some key takeaway messages from the conference!)

Two

Two years ago

one easy thing you can do to be a welcoming church for people with special needs

Most children's ministries have good health guidelines. Ours are pasted below:

We want to provide a healthy environment in our classrooms, so we ask you to keep your child at home when any of the following have occurred within the last 24 hours.

• Fever/Vomiting
• Drainage from the eye(s)
• Green or yellow runny nose
• Frequent cough
• Diarrhea
• Questionable rash
• Sore throat

If your child becomes ill while in the classroom, you will be notified promptly.

If your child is being treated with an antibiotic, he or she should have received treatment for at least 24 hours before coming to the classroom

Many people with special needs are more susceptible to illness, either by nature of the disability itself or due to common coexisting conditions. I know one family that arranges for a babysitter on Sunday mornings in the winter to avoid the flu because it's so dangerous for their child, and I know a couple other families who just don't come when they know illnesses are rampant.

Of course, the best health guidelines won't catch everything. This past Sunday we kept my son home because he had a fever, but there have been times when we've gone with church with a seemingly healthy child, only to have the fever or vomiting hit on Sunday afternoon.

That said, I know some churches who don't have good health guidelines and others who don't enforce them because they don't want to keep a family from church that Sunday. What those churches don't realize is that the choice not to use or enforce health guidelines can keep other families from church.

Think about kids with compromised immune systems the next time you're hesitant about refusing to let a child join class if he/she is sick or getting parents to pick up a child who becomes sick. Keeping your ministry as healthy as you can is a simple way to make your church a more welcoming place for people with special needs.

(Also, I've rarely seen health guidelines shared for youth or adult ministry, but I have seen teens and adults at church who are obviously - even at times admittedly - contagious. I know our church has included blurbs in the bulletin asking people to forgo perfumes and other fragrances at church because others have adverse reactions to them. Perhaps a note at the start of cold and flu season about not coming when you're sick could be helpful. Any other ideas for communicating good health guidelines for adults?)

Photos of my son, the first one from a year and a half ago prior to an MRI and the second from this week while he's been sick (and *ahem* disappointed that Momma's school didn't make it to the Final Four). He does not have any diagnosed disabilities or other special needs. 

adoption and special needs: praying for Kirill

I've posted this over here as well. Usually I would just link to it to drive some blog traffic over to The Works of God Displayed, but this is too important to chance one of my readers here missing it because you don't want to click the link. (No hard feelings for that - sometimes I don't want to bother with links either!) 

My husband and I plan to adopt. We'll begin that process once we finish renovating our third floor in the next couple years to add a couple additional bedrooms in what is now attic space. And our plan is that we'll adopt either a sibling group of 2-3 children or a child with special needs (and possibly a sibling group with a child with special needs). God may circumvent those plans, which is a-okay with us because we want Him to reign in our lives. He has placed this desire and passion in our hearts and the Bible is clear about God's love for adoption, though, so we expect that our family of four will be growing in that way in a few years' time.

As such, we prayed along with a sweet family from our church last year when they had major challenges cutting through the red tape to bring home their Ugandan daughter Edith. And we rejoiced when she joined the rest of the family almost a year ago!

And we are praying now for the Davis family and sweet Kirill in Russia. The picture to the left, which I found here, is of Gary and Tesney Davis with Kirill, a sweet boy who they expected to adopt in a court visit on St. Patrick's Day during their second visit to Russia. (He also happens to have Down syndrome.)

Instead, in a part of the world where children with Down syndrome are generally hidden away in institutions, the judge rejected their petition for adoption on the grounds that his disability made him better suited for an institution than an adoptive family. The Davises were told that they were suitable to adopt in every way and that they would be approved to adopt a "typical" child instead if they wanted.

The thing is, though, that they want Kirill. They love Kirill. They already consider him to be part of their family. They posted the two pictures below on their blog, in the same way that I post pictures of our children on our family's blog.

They have experience with young children - Tesney's degree is in early education - and with people with special needs - actively working with several special needs groups in Alabama. In other words, they aren't naive in their desire to adopt a child with a disability.

Before they left Alabama for Russia earlier this month, their four-year-old son Clayton - without prompting from Tesney or Greg - dumped out his toys and separated them into two piles, one for him to keep and one to give to Kirill. Clayton still doesn't know that Kirill might not being coming home with his mommy and daddy, because Tesney and Greg know it would devastate him and because they are still hoping and praying that he will be coming home.

Right now, they are in the process of appealing to the Supreme Court in Russia, and they expect the date for that will be in the first week or two of April. Two more families who haven't had court dates yet are currently trying to adopt children with Down syndrome from the same part of Russia and are expected to have the same judge that denied Kirill's adoption.

I don't know this family, but I've done enough fact-checking on the case that I feel confident about sharing this with y'all. (Side note: isn't it sad that I need to fact check for something like this? But I do know that some people takes advantage of others, so - when I heard about this a week ago - I wanted to get more details before I was willing to share it.) As I write and speak about special needs ministry in the church, I'm not talking about one church building or one denomination. Church, in a biblical sense, is much bigger than that. We don't just go to church; we - the body of believers in Christ - are the church.

So please join me in caring about this part of our church body, even though I don't know them and you probably don't either: Pray. Fast. Ask others to pray. Share this information. If you have contacts who you're willing to contact, please do so and/or pass them along to Tesney through the email option on her blog (link below).

And stay informed:
The Facebook page
The Davis family blog, with the specific post about the judge's rejection here

(And here's another great post about this from my bloggy friend, Tammy.)

Thank you.

Here's a marvelous update to this story over at my other blog.

adoption and special needs: praying for Kirill

My husband and I plan to adopt. We'll begin that process once we finish renovating our third floor in the next couple years to add a couple additional bedrooms in what is now attic space. And our plan is that we'll adopt either a sibling group of 2-3 children or a child with special needs (and possibly a sibling group with a child with special needs). God may circumvent those plans, which is a-okay with us because we want Him to reign in our lives. He has placed this desire and passion in our hearts and the Bible is clear about God's love for adoption, though, so we expect that our family of four will be growing in that way in a few years' time.

As such, we prayed along with a sweet family from our church last year when they had major challenges cutting through the red tape to bring home their Ugandan daughter Edith. And we rejoiced when she joined the rest of the family almost a year ago!

And we are praying now for the Davis family and sweet Kirill in Russia. The picture to the left, which I found here, is of Gary and Tesney Davis with Kirill, a sweet boy who they expected to adopt in a court visit on St. Patrick's Day during their second visit to Russia. (He also happens to have Down syndrome.)

Instead, in a part of the world where children with Down syndrome are generally hidden away in institutions, the judge rejected their petition for adoption on the grounds that his disability made him better suited for an institution than an adoptive family. The Davises were told that they were suitable to adopt in every way and that they would be approved to adopt a "typical" child instead if they wanted.

The thing is, though, that they want Kirill. They love Kirill. They already consider him to be part of their family. They posted the two pictures below on their blog, in the same way that I post pictures of our children on our family's blog.

They have experience with young children - Tesney's degree is in early education - and with people with special needs - actively working with several special needs groups in Alabama. In other words, they aren't naive in their desire to adopt a child with a disability.

Before they left Alabama for Russia earlier this month, their four-year-old son Clayton - without prompting from Tesney or Greg - dumped out his toys and separated them into two piles, one for him to keep and one to give to Kirill. Clayton still doesn't know that Kirill might not being coming home with his mommy and daddy, because Tesney and Greg know it would devastate him and because they are still hoping and praying that he will be coming home.

Right now, they are in the process of appealing to the Supreme Court in Russia, and they expect the date for that will be in the first week or two of April. Two more families who haven't had court dates yet are currently trying to adopt children with Down syndrome from the same part of Russia and are expected to have the same judge that denied Kirill's adoption.

I don't know this family, but I've done enough fact-checking on the case that I feel confident about sharing this with y'all. (Side note: isn't it sad that I need to fact check for something like this? But I do know that some people takes advantage of others, so - when I heard about this a week ago - I wanted to get more details before I was willing to share it.) As I write and speak about special needs ministry in the church, I'm not talking about one church building or one denomination. Church, in a biblical sense, is much bigger than that. We don't just go to church; we - the body of believers in Christ - are the church.

So please join me in caring about this part of our church body, even though I don't know them and you probably don't either: Pray. Fast. Ask others to pray. Share this information. If you have contacts who you're willing to contact, please do so and/or pass them along to Tesney through the email option on her blog (link below).

And stay informed:
The Facebook page
The Davis family blog, with the specific post about the judge's rejection here

(And here's another great post about this from my bloggy friend, Tammy.)

Thank you.

Here are two updates that followed this post: 

• Praying for Kirill and the Davis family!
• Introducing Gregory Kirill Davis - praise God!