Tom and Julie Meekins
One thing that is always on our prayer list for special needs families is that they will build a community to support one another. A recent example of this happening in our world is that we were able to participate in a fun project with another special needs family. Lauren and Brandon are a special couple. They have three little boys, ages 8, 6 and 3. Their oldest has Autism. If you have followed our ministry for any length of time, you have seen us highlight the ministry Lauren founded and directs called Zach Speaks. (www.zachspeaksinc.org). Lauren and Brandon also serve at our church in the special needs ministry.
Like you, we have all had to get creative in reaching out to our people during this quarantine time. Recently, our director of special needs thought it would be a good idea to send a note to the special needs children under her care. Similar cards had already gone out to the adult special needs individuals. Lauren and Brandon’s boys designed a homemade card for us to use. (See the photo cover for this blog.) The cards then made their way to our house where Julie wrote a personal message in each one. After the notes were written, Amy addressed all the envelopes and Tom took them to the post office for mailing.
That got us to thinking about other ways that community is being built and can continue to be built among special needs families.
You can be that leader who works at creating an environment where people grow together in relationships and can be a real support to one another.
Here are some more ideas of examples for building community:
Videos: You can encourage special needs families to make videos for one another. Amy, Tom, and Julie made a video for parents and another one for our special needs adults. They were fun to do.
Meet-ups: In this time of full quarantine (some states are still majorly locked down) and has Phase One and Phase Two, etc. go into effect, parents – especially moms – are hungry for connection. You can facilitate or nudge a special needs parent to facilitate a meet up either on Zoom or in-person with all the required safety protocols.
Card Sending Campaigns: You can tap a parent’s shoulder (so to speak) to rally folks to send cards to the people in your ministries for birthdays, holidays, for people in the hospital, or just to say “We are thinking of you.” Snail mail is a coveted gift these days.
Social Media Communities: We have a private Facebook group for Special Needs parents in our local area. As a leader, if you don’t already have one set up, you can begin by creating one. Then, you may want to appoint a trusted parent or two to post consistently in the group. They can post encouraging Bible verses, stories, virtual and in-person events in which they can participate, a helpful book or article, or even questions to have the opportunity to check in. We have posted questions like “what do you need?” , “how do you feel about…?” “how is your child handling…”
Taking a leadership role in connecting special needs families with each other, building community so that they can care for one another, and being available to support their efforts is a valuable work for the kingdom. Let’s pray how we can be effective, authentic, and vibrant in doing so.
Feel free to reach out to us to brainstorm ideas for your ministry.
HERE’S HOW YOU CAN CONNECT WITH US:
We invite you to connect with Tom, Julie, and Amy through:
Email: champions4parents@gmail.com
Phone: 410-746-9010
Facebook: facebook.com/Champions4Parents/
Don’t forget our website: champions4parents.com
Much love,
Tom and Julie and Amy Meekins
Champions4Parents.com
