Elaina sits down and talks with Lisa Jamieson from Walk Right In Ministries about family caregivers, the holidays, and ways the church can better support them.
The training, content, gatherings and experiences that we’ve created for pastors, church staff and ministry volunteers produced with the assistance of like-minded colleagues serving in disability ministry have become our principal service. So much of what we’re able do to help churches welcome and support families, we accomplish by bringing together experts from other ministry organizations.
November is Caregiver Awareness Month. As someone who became one of my dad’s caregivers before I started school, I grew up thinking everyone in the world was aware of caregivers and caregiving. As a young adult my husband and I cared for a son born with a life-threatening medical condition, and his typical sibling. As members of the sandwich generation, my brother, sister, and I cared for our mother for 15 years after she was diagnosed with dementia. This explains why, when I first heard that November is Caregiver Awareness Month, I was incredulous, and I still am.
In this episode, Lauren Hickman shares her personal journey and calling to disability ministry, describing how God has guided her every step of the way to serve families impacted by disability.
In today’s episode, Sandra talks about the challenges small to normative-sized churches face in disability ministry and shares how the churches she’s been a part of have overcome these challenges.
Podcast co-host Sandra Peoples grew up with a sister with Down syndrome and now has a teenager with level 3 autism, so she knows how different the holidays can feel for a family like hers. But they don't have to feel different at church! With a few steps of consideration, she shares how families can feel included and valued. Let's make sure special-needs families can hear the message of hope this Christmas!
I hurt all the time. I have an autoimmune condition that causes elevated levels of pain, fatigue, and brain fog. Recently, as I climbed the stage to preach, I knew I didn’t have the physical strength to do it. But there is something really cool about having chronic pain—and I am different than who I was before chronic pain. Here’s what God has done for me.
The day we received an official diagnosis explaining our daughter’s struggles, my husband and I cried. Actually, I literally wailed and groaned for at least half an hour. Carly’s diagnosis triggered a heart cry that special needs parents, families and individuals living with disability commonly understand, and can benefit the whole Church.
I’m willing to guess that everyone on the planet has experienced life off kilter in some way this year. Wow! 2020! A year we won’t easily forget. Life right now is hard for so many, feeling messy and downright immobilizing. There’s much confusion and unrest in the world today. What do we do? What do we believe?
