Source: Every Home for Christ, October 2022
Martha’s 11-year-old son, Jonah, has cerebral palsy. Jonah desperately wants to go to school, Martha tells me. Jonah’s physical challenges and his family’s financial circumstances make that impossible. Martha just wants a full life for her son.
The stigma against people with disabilities in Africa is oppressive. It’s tragic. It’s infuriating.
Children and young people with disabilities are treated as outcasts and often neglected. Governments provide little or no support to families with children who have disabilities. Husbands frequently abandon their wives when their child’s disability becomes apparent. Disability is often seen as a curse on a family. Families and communities blame mothers.
The Bible says children are a blessing from the Lord. It does not specify able or disabled children. They are all a blessing.
Jesus calls us to reach not only the people we are comfortable with but the ones we are not so comfortable with. We are to urge anyone we find to come to the house of the Lord. Anyone means any human being you find with God’s breath, regardless of shape or form, abled or disabled. That’s the Great Commission.
In the full story, the author talks about her own son, who has autism, and her ministry to people on the margins.
This is a global problem, not just a problem in Africa. Scripture has much to say about ministering to the marginalized. And many of us look away. See a short post comparing the themes of the top 25 Christian worship songs with what’s in the Psalms (Craig Greenfield, via Global Christian Worship). You’ll see some notable gaps.