D6 special needs track live blogging

Hi, friends! Today I'm here at the D6 pre-conference labs, sitting in on and presenting in the special needs ministry track. I can't live blog my own sessions (I'm not that good that multi-tasking!), but I'll be blogging through Marie's sessions today and I'll post about my content last this week.

Here are the sessions on the schedule today:

• Disability Is Not My Thing... Help Me Find, Equip, and Sustain My Team! (Marie Kuck)
• The Nuts & Bolts of Special Needs Ministry (Shannon Dingle)
• Ministering to Families Impacted By Disability - More Than Adding a Ramp to Your Church (Marie Kuck)
• Respite Care: Planning a Successful Outreach to Families with Special Needs (Shannon Dingle)

Thankfully, a few more sessions will have a special needs focus as well, but I won't be able to blog through those since they're opposite my sessions or Marie's. I'll try to post info here as I can get it from other presenters.

Tomorrow and Friday, the main stage sessions will be live streamed online, but the pre-conference sessions aren't. Glad to be able to share the content here!

links I'm loving in special needs ministry {9/24/12}

Every Life Matters

Three of the ladies I worked with, Amanda, Kym, and Karen, had recently traveled to Ukraine with willing hearts to do all they could to help children with special needs there. Amanda had seen firsthand the conditions the children with special needs lived in while spending time there adopting her two boys. She came home willing to do what she could to help the others left behind. Kym and Karen, both physical therapists with huge hearts for children and special needs, said, “Let’s go help them.”

Dear Santa, All I Want for Christmas is a User's Manual for my Kid

You see, Santa, here’s my dilemma. My daughter, Helene, is autistic. She knows who you are — sort of... I am torn. Do I let her go on believing you are nothing but a cartoon character? Or, do I encourage her to behave her best and send a hopeful letter to the North Pole, wishing for a magical delivery? Because, Santa, my daughter (like many other children on the autism spectrum) has a very small circle of trust, and I am lucky enough to be in the circle.

Bad explanations of the Bible kill the soul. The truth gives light and hope!

God may be pleased to use you to help me see Jesus and to give me a heart that longs to be with this Jesus who has authority over everything – like a boy with multiple disabilities who he doesn’t heal, and a wife with the constant specter of cancer over her, and all the sinful failings of my heart that is prone to wander. 

Bible People (printable)

Go to the link above to print your own! Great for Sunday school or parent-led family devotions. (Thanks, Amy Fenton Lee for pointing out this great resource.)

A special needs parent's response to "I don't know how you do it"

On good days, I get up in the morning and cut my losses and struggles from yesterday (because when you parent a child with special needs, there are usually daily losses and struggles). I look my kids in the eye, breathe out a prayer, hug them, and hold on a while because they are worth it, and our life is blessed.
On hard days, I lock myself in the bathroom for five minutes, and cry over the fact that my my daughter Evangelline doesn’t talk, or that Polly hasn’t made any real friends yet, and I look my kids in the eye, I breathe out a prayer, hug them and hold on, because they are worth it, and our life is blessed.

God Heard, God Remained

The story of Hagar and her son reminds me that God does hear the cries of one suffering boy and his mother.

Template for Movable Visual Schedule

Click the link above to go to The Inclusive Church to learn more and download the template!

4 Ways to Build Relationships with Parents

All of these are true for parents of kiddos with special needs too!

What You Can Learn from Disney about Ministering to Kids with Autism

CNN recently reported that 1 in 88 children in the U.S. have some form of autism. This means there are many children in your community who have autism. Are you being intentional about providing a place where they feel comfortable and have their needs met?

What do church leaders need to know about respite care for children and youth with disabilities?

Seriously, I'd like to know your answer.

On Wednesday, I'll be speaking to a group of folks at a family ministry conference. One session is about the basics of special needs ministry (including starting and sustaining one), and the other session is about successful outreach events that serve the entire family, primarily focusing on respite care.

(Quick Webster moment: Respite care is kind of like a parent's night out or a mother's morning out event. I know most Christians can name a church in their area that offers one of those programs. However, this kind of event is designed to offer time away for caregivers of those with disabilities, usually - though not always - children.)

I know about articles like this one that liken the stress of a mothers with autism to combat soldiers. I know about studies like this one that show that family-focused care can make more of a difference than medical care for the individual child. (Granted, that one is about colic not disability, but the principle still applies.) I've read stories - like this one in which a mom describes stress so extreme that she "broke" and once hit her son (who has autism) a couple years ago - of heartache and exhaustion and feelings of hopelessness and depression and anger and more.

(You should read that last one. Really, you should.)

I love the list here sharing five realities for special needs parents: We're tired. Our brains are constantly busy. We're lonely. We know more about our child's condition than most doctors. We're fragile. (Thanks to Amy Fenton Lee to posting it on The Inclusive Church's Facebook page)

All of those tidbits offer great insight into why we ought to meet families affected by disability where they are, which is often a place of survival, and meet practical needs. But I'd love to know what YOU think about this topic.

What would you - as a church leader, a special needs parent, someone who cares about people with disabilities and their families, a volunteer at a respite event - tell the leaders I'll be addressing next week?

on being in over my head, loving our kids, and abiding in Christ #D62012

I'm in over my head right now.

In a beautifully, wonderfully, grace-filled sort of way.

I get to be Zoe's mom.

Being her mom is freeing. I don't care what the growth or developmental norms are, because I know she's going to pave her own path, given the circumstances and brain injury that God ordained for her. She is growing and moving and doing so many things that specialists didn't think she would. 

I get to love our first two children, and see them blossom in ways that include compassion for classmates and soccer practices and museum visits and Chinese and Spanish lessons. You see, they too are paving their own paths, each in the direction where God is leading.

Jocelyn plans to be a wife and mom who serves as a missionary in another country and who also writes and illustrates children's books. She's planning to have three children, and she says at least one will be adopted, "but maybe not from Taiwan, because there are kids in other countries and in our country who need families."

Robbie doesn't plan ahead. He's my in-the-moment kid. Part of it is his age (3), and part of it is his personality. When he grows up, he says he's going to be a dinosaur. And a daddy. Naturally.

Our church's special needs ministry - called Access Ministry - is growing too. We have more volunteer needs than ever before, but God is providing for those through sweet, sweet folks. We have new families coming. We have the honor of serving and helping these families find places to serve.

I get to raise our sweet kids and lead in ministry with the man I love more than any other. It's precious to serve in parenting and the church and life with the one who gave me his heart and his last name. 

Next week, I'll travel to the D6 2012, the (in my humble opinion) best family discipleship conference around, to present two sessions on special needs ministry. If I can swing it (i.e. if a kind soul at a ticket desk is willing to switch my flight to come home earlier without charging me change fees that are as costly as my tickets were originally),  I'll come back before the conference ends so that I can see my big girl dance at her school's Hispanic Heritage Festival. 

And if not, I'll be there for the whole conference, getting sweet reminders of God's first calling for me, which is to abide in Him.

Yep, Abide is the theme for D6. It's also the theme for my life right now. 

Writing is happening, mostly in other places than this blog. Writing will return here, though probably not with the daily regularity that it used to be, at least not for a while. I can't offer a timeline, because I just don't know what it is right now.

I'm simply abiding in Him, and moving forward one step and one day at a time.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. {John 15:4-5}

Yes, I'm in over my head. But I'm clinging to the vine, so it's a good place to be. 

lately

Well, Zoe is just darling. We've had and/or scheduled more evals - audiology (done, all is well there) and physical/occupational therapy for her motor impairments (coming up on October 1). I will blog about her developmental eval a couple weeks ago, but for now here's the highlight of it:

She's ours. She's doing well. She's loved.

And she thinks Daddy's gruffy chin tickles more than anything else in the world.

She's also a legit American, y'all. The USCIS sent her Certificate of Citizenship this week. They even spelled her name right and everything. (I hear this is a small miracle.)

Nope, that's not a new Dinglefest dog in the picture below. That's Sadie, who we petsat for a while. We're not ready to be a two dog family, but Napoleon likes it when we pretend for a bit. He loved Sadie and so did we, but Harley is still his favorite girlfriend. (I must post a picture of them soon. Quite a comical pair, they are.)

Here's a close-up of Jocelyn's shirt. I bought it at the airport in Taiwan. (After I lose 10-15 pounds, I'll be able to fit in my matching one. I didn't plan for that to be my incentive, as I thought I was getting the right adult size. Taiwan, your sizes confuse me.)

All the pictures were for the First Day o' School 2012, Part 2. You see, Jocelyn goes to a public school during the week, but she also spends two hours each Saturday afternoon in Chinese language school.

Most kids might be bummed about the idea of school on Saturdays. This is what Jocelyn's reaction was.

We had been on a waitlist for Chinese school, due to some miscommunication. (We signed up in time, but our English and their Chinese muddled things up, as they thought we had just adopted Jocelyn from Taiwan and thus placed her in the native Chinese speakers class. When we realized the error, the non-native speakers class had a waitlist. Yep, Dinglefest Schoolin' 2012: Brought to You by The Waitlist.) I took those pictures right after she found out she was in.

Cool side-note: We first met with the Chinese language school folks a day before we knew Zoe existed. We weren't planning to adopt a child from a Chinese-speaking country then. Ain't it neat how God paved the way in advance for us?

Our girl loves different cultures and languages in a way I can't claim credit for. It's just something God infused into her little personality. Now, between the daily instruction in Spanish at her elementary school and the weekly Chinese school (including homework, which helps me learn along with her), she is loving this year. (Yeah, yeah, math and reading and all that is fun too. But languages? That's what she really gets excited about.)

(That, and soccer. Which starts again in a week or two.)

And the boy?

He's a ham. Who loves Spider-Man.

And has an infectious smile.

He might have used that smile to swindle me into buying this Spidey baseball cap at Target this morning.

PS - I now live on the side of town in which a Target trip is also a meet-up of friends. FYI, friends, I don't plan to dress any nicer for Saturday Target runs than I used to back when I lived on the other side of town from most folks. Not gonna wear makeup for Target either. Thankfully, none of my friends recoiled in horror this morning, so all is well.