that's what they said {disability ministry round-up 6/4/12}

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Broadway Christian Church offers summer program for children with disabilities
Vacation Bible School has long been a favorite summer tradition for children in Columbia. Many local churches offer programs for kids of all ages. But for the first time this summer, children with disabilities will have their very own VBS program as Broadway Christian Church expands its popular All God’s Children adapted Sunday school curriculum to meet the summer need.

Modesto church offers Bible school for special-needs children
June is the traditional kickoff month for church-run vacation Bible schools, which usually include games, crafts, singing, skits, snacks and Bible stories.

But what if your child can't run in the relay games, can't see the crafts or hear the stories? What if large crowds of kids — some VBS programs draw more than 500 of them — overwhelm your mentally challenged child?

Willow Creek Community Church: Disability Ministry
"All people matter to God; therefore, they matter to us." This founding belief is a cornerstone at Willow Creek. Believing that we are all made in the image of God—made to know Him, love Him, and connect in community together—Willow is honored to serve those with special needs.

Letting People With Special Needs Minister
Special needs adults, teens, and middle schoolers are a volunteering gold mine too--often overlooked. We pour time and effort into ministering to special needs kids, but frequently forget that they have countless gifts to give. As special needs kids "age out" of children's ministry, it's important that we give them opportunities to feel like part of the body of Christ. Just like the rest of us, people with disabilities need to feel loved, valued, and important. We all need a purpose-special needs youth and adults aren't any different.

Christ Community Church offers special needs program for kids with special needs
"Access 18:16 offers a continuum of support to best meet the individual needs of each child," Walls said. "While some children may be best suited for the Kingdom Kids Connect classroom which is a self-contained classroom, many children with disabilities thrive among their peers in the church's children program. In these cases, a buddy is assigned to provide comfort and consistency to the child and helps them be included into our children's program. Additionally, in the Connect classroom, we are doing reverse mainstreaming where we have children without disabilities to be a apart of the Connect class. This has been a very successful and rewarding classroom model for all participants."

Autism and the Fractured Family - Making a Choice
Families with autistic children face these decisions all the time. Do you take the child to a wedding? A family function? A vacation that removes them from the familiar or their routine? Heck, forget the big trips and events. Do you take the child to their sibling’s school play? To church, synagogue, or the mosque for services? To that birthday party that the whole family was invited to? When is it important for the family to do something together, for that autistic child to be pushed out of his comfort zone (because life is messy, life cannot always be routine), and when is it not worth it?

Why Facebook Removed Pictures of a Baby
Two thousand years of art have celebrated the image of another mother holding the wounded body of her son. Rather than being offended at images of suffering, let us embrace those who suffer, and mourn with those who mourn—even on Facebook.

An Unexpected Ministry: The Elisha Foundation
Mission work doesn’t always lead to overseas travel. That was the case for Justin and Tamara Reimer who founded The Elisha Foundation in 2005. After the birth of their son, Elisha, and his diagnosis of Down Syndrome, the couple knew that they had a new mission. The mission became The Elisha Foundation, located in Bend, Oregon, it’s one that would keep them in the United States and affect the lives of many children just like Elisha.

Hire Staff Proactively, Not Reactively
(Pastors) >> Prepare >> (People) >> Minister >> (Each Other)

Parents Say, "Special Needs Ministry Not Necessary"
As a father of 3 boys, each with special needs, I’m drawn to other parents who are in a similar situation as mine. That’s the reason why 85% of my acquaintances on my FB pages are parents of special needs kiddos. I was interested in how many of them attend church even if it does not have a special needs ministry

We must warn the enemies of our children - God is coming
As I’ve explored here before, there is a horrible, unbiblical, idolatrous line of thinking that says only people who are strong and have some sort of usefulness really deserve to live. The evil is breath-taking.

Finally, want to know where to start in disability ministry? Use bulletin inserts like this church did to survey your members (and don't you love the idea on the reverse side for volunteer recruitment too?).


Church, let's NOT imitate this school! {on showing respect to all in special needs ministry through confidentiality}

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I remember this time of year well: showing up to school but not paying close attention because the taste of summer was already on my tongue, sneaking yearbooks back and forth to sign during unapproved times, and saying goodbye to many friends for the summer because I lived in a different neighborhood than most classmates.

Once, our yearbooks were replaced because the last set of pages fell out due to a manufacturing defect (and I now have two from that year because friends had signed both). I don't ever remember our yearbooks being recalled, though, especially not for the reasons of this Texas high school (article here):

The district said in a statement Friday that it wanted to honor its Special Education Program by dedicating a section to it inside the yearbook.

But Laura Jobe, a spokeswoman for the district, said a passage in the section came under question, MyFoxDFW.com reports.

It read "Some of the disabilities the students in the Special Education Program have are being blind, deaf or non-verbal … (students' names) are both blind and deaf, as well as mentally retarded."

The district declared that the section must be removed since the school did not obtain parents' permission to run photos of their students inside it -- a requirement by law --MyFoxDFW.com reports.

Exercise extra caution in posting information or image online.
(image source)
Sounds thoughtless, huh? But before you slam the school too badly for the speck in their eye, let's check ourselves for the log in our own. Does your church publish pictures of kids with special needs or share their diagnoses without parental approval?

At our church, we never share details or diagnosis with anyone who isn't directly serving the child, youth, or adult in question. Even then, the information is given on a need-to-know basis. For example, none of us need to know the exact diagnosis of our guests at Joy Prom, so we don't ask for that information at any point. For children and youth on Sunday mornings or at respite, we find that it is helpful to know a diagnosis because (a) if a medical emergency occurred at respite and the parents were unavailable, some diagnostic information could be valuable in treatment and (b) some parents we serve are not able to articulate information about their child's special needs and a diagnosis is helpful in those cases. We have a confidentiality statement that we require all volunteers to sign before they can receive specific information - including disability-specific details - about someone in our ministry. We NEVER disclose a diagnosis in print, with one exception being when our church newsletter shared a family's story - with their involvement and mostly in their own words - about God's work in their lives through their son's challenges.

When it comes to pictures of our friends with special needs, we include a statement at the end of our Access Ministry intake form requesting permission to do so for ministry purposes. Some individual, parents, or caregivers choose not to initial that statement, and we honor that. I personally examine all event pictures - like ones from respite night - to make sure none include those individuals before I pass them along to our church's communications team. And when I posted a picture of Kelsey with a Joy Prom guest whose caretaker had given written permission, I used photo editing software to blur his nametag so I wasn't sharing identifying information.

That school in Texas seemed to have good intentions, wanting to highlight a oft-ignored group of their school's population by including them in the yearbook. I'm sure your church has good intentions too. I hope this post encourages you to use God's wisdom in how you share about what you're doing in special needs ministry, that every person in your church is treated with the dignity bestowed on them by their Creator and that you may not set any stumbling blocks in the way of those who do not yet know Christ.

blessed by friends who already love our daughter

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On Friday, I got to post this wonderful status message:


That's a lot of likes. And a lot of comments.

Thank you for rejoicing with us.

As I scanned through the comments and the likes, I was touched by how loved our girl already is and how many lives she has touched. Among the likes are...

...friends who have known me for decades and others who have known me for days.

...friends who I've been to church with and friends who I've been to bars with.

...friends who I know through Bible study and college and teaching and high school and swimming and middle school and journalism and ministry and parenting and neighborhoods.

...friends who I taught as youth in Sunday school and friends who have taught my children.

...friends who are Christians and friends who aren't.

...friends who I've lived with and friends who I've only met online.

...friends who added precious comments like, "Thank you, Father," and "Can't wait for your daughter to be home!" and friends who texted us sweet words like, "Congratulations, Mom of THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!"

...friends who care enough to shed tears and feel goosebumps and shout and sing and gasp in joy for us.

Adoption is beautiful. It is beautiful primarily because it offers a little glimpse into what God did for us in calling us into His family and adopting us, an act made possible by the sacrifice of His Son.

And it is also beautiful for all the ways it has united friends of ours across the world and across our life history, all joining with us in excitement about Zoe's arrival.

Thanks for being a part of our adoption.

zoe amanda: legally our daughter.

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Y'all.

Zoe Amanda is legally a Dingle.

We're celebrating by continuing to unpack the house (hey, if we don't keep making good progress, we'll still have boxes waiting when we leave for Taiwan, and we don't want that!). And picking up Pei Wei tonight. (umm, it's Asian-ish.)

We're praying that our court documents will be translated from Chinese back into English with record speed.

We're praying that AIT - the US entity in Taiwan - will schedule our visa appointment the week of June 25. That would be the ideal time for us to travel, and it would mean that we would depart sometime the week of the June 18.

We're thankful that we'll likely be traveling with at least one other family, a couple from Nashville and their eight-year-old daughter. I'm looking forward to meeting this other sweet mother, as we have bonded through having similar timelines for our Zoe and their Nathan.

We're looking forward to coming off the plane and through security at the airport to see friends and family and our two oldest children waiting to celebrate the arrival of our third child.

And we are looking forward to kissing her cheeks, looking into her eyes, and seeing her lips smile.

I've used two words over and over again in the past four months: thankful and blessed.


More than any others, those sum it up for us.

We are thankful.

And we are blessed.


Thanks for praying with us on this journey.