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See the Daytona Beach News Journal for the entire editorial published on January 28, 2009, regarding a renewed commitment to open government in Florida.

Florida made history when it adopted the country’s most progressive
constitutional right of access to government records in 1992. That right,
coupled with the state’s 1967 Sunshine Law requiring all government
meetings to be open and accessible to the public, made Florida a leader in
the transparent conduct of public business — for a few years, anyway. The
90 exemptions to the open meetings law and the 970 exemptions to the public
records law have replaced transparency with muddle…

For the rest of the editorial see:  http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN18012809.htm

My mother used to say that it was hard to hate the people for whom you pray.  After eight years of praying for George W. Bush as our president, I’m finding it hard to change.  Yes, I’m now praying each day for our new President. 

Actually, I started praying for all the candidates when they declared their candidacy which means I’ve been praying for President Obama for about two years.  However, I’m finding it hard to switch gears.  In our country, transfer of power is immediate and automatic.  But in my prayer life, it’s hard to let go.

Perhaps what my mother said to me years ago is really true.  I find that I have a real tender spot for President Bush.  I was grieved when the audience at the inaugural booed him.  Of course, he didn’t do everything right but he also didn’t do everything wrong.  No man living or dead has done more for Africa than President Bush.  However, we are short sighted when it comes to those efforts and accomplishments. 

I don’t believe in white-washing but I also don’t believe in overlooking the good because there are some things we don’t like.  In the state of Florida, no Governor did more for the mentally challenged community than Jeb Bush but it was never enough.  Again and again, it was heard, “If only we had a Democrat, then we would get more services.”  It appeared that pouring money didn’t help our services or our opinions.

Now the money has dried up and we are left with withering services.  Our new governor who isn’t a Democrat and the legislature are working feverously to balance the budget.  As more cuts come, perhaps, it would be wisdom to pray more and critique less. 

As an advocate, I believe it’s important to point out flaws, misdeeds and missteps.  However, as a pray-er, I’ve seen that it’s hard to hate the people for whom we pray.  Perhaps a renewal of prayer is still needed.

When my son was at the University of Florida, he was part to the UF surfing team.  During those years, we often hosted the entire team at our home for the weekend.  There were guide lines.  The girls slept upstairs.  The guys slept downstairs.  No one slept on the steps.  We provided one meal which was usually the evening meal.  (In the South, we call it supper.)  Everyone was on their own for the other two meals. 

Everyone cleaned up after themselves.  I expected my home to be left in the same condition as when they arrived.  I had no curfew for the group.  After all, they lived on their own in Gainsville.  It would be silly for me to expect them to come in at a certain hour.  Usually, the group would buy one of the supper meals for my husband and me.  That meant that on that day I would have a big breakfast for them.  (Remember I provided one meal each day.)

Our home was never abused or harmed in anyway by the surfing team.  Because of these positive experiences, I realized that this type of arrangement is a good way to accommodate overnight guests.  Perhaps because we live in Florida and two blocks from the ocean and maybe because my husband and I love having guests, we have a lot of company.  Using this arrangement, people feel free to sight-see or roam the beach during the day.  They don’t have to be tied down to our schedule or planned agenda.  They can eat hardy or sparingly.   In other words, it is their vacation.

I’m talking about this because our SC Special Gathering program director is bringing a small group of her members to visit with us for a couple of days.  We are a ministry within the mentally challenged community.  Our mission is evangelism and discipleship of people who are developmentally delayed.  We feel that trips with our members is a hyper course in discipleship.  Our Florida programs have a four day, three night camp where we have about 220 people who come each year.  Our SC program director prefers to take her members in smaller groups and work with them on a more personal level. 

I’m preparing for them.  Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the years about preparing for guests:

1. Don’t worry about having your home spic and span.  Doesn’t it make sense to do the most cleaning after the guests leave?
2. It helps to have one room where you can stash your junk and shut the door.  Without that room, I would’ve been an unhappy hostess much of the time.
3. Don’t worry about keeping the house clean once your guests arrive.  In fact, save your energy and give it up.  They saw that they don’t need to call the health department when they first arrived.  They don’t want to have you cleaning and straightening up all the time.
4. Don’t have time to clean one or two rooms?  Close the door and declare them off limits.
5. Allow your guests to help with dishes and cooking.  When we have guests who come for an extended stay, the rule in our home is that whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes. 
6. Remember your primary job is to make your guests feel comfortable.  Take time to sit down and talk with them.  Making people comfortable is work but it isn’t hard work.  If you are comfortable having them there, they will be comfortable being there.
7. Have a basket of new toiletries in the bathroom that they can have, if they have left something.
8. Accommodations don’t have to be Bed and Breakfast quality.  Remember it’s a free room.  Your guests know that and they will appreciate your opening your home to them. 
9. Keep your meals simple.  Pull out your favorite easy menu.  A large salad with fresh baked bread (from the freezer section of the grocery store) and a large pot of stew makes a wonderful meal.  Spice it up by serving it in your best china.   For the surfing team, we would have a gigantic salad and 20 pounds of Rock Shrimp (a local, cheap delicacy).
10. Keep your desserts even simpler.  Slice Enterman’s pound cake.  Top with ice cream and hot fudge sauce.  It’s a great, easy dessert.  Or… fresh from the oven slice and bake cookies can be sandwiched with gobs of canned icing then dipped in that wonderful chocolate sauce that hardens when it gets cold.  Pop them into the freezer for a few minutes.  Your guests will go wild. 
11. Most of all, have fun.  If you are enjoying yourself, you give your guests permission to relax and enjoy themselves.
12. If you are entertaining people who are mentally challenged, don’t worry.  As you know, they are people just like everyone else.  If they are treated like honored guests, they will treat your home with respect, just like everyone else.

In the Scriptures, there is a lot of written about entertaining and being able to accommodate people in our homes.  We’ve lost some of that in our hustle/bustle world.  Don’t miss out.  God has enriched our family and home with folks who have blessed us much more than we blessed them. 

My guests will be arriving soon.  I have some stuff that needs to be thrown into a spare room and a couple of doors that need to closed.

As our society evolves, one of the biggest things to change in the church world has been insurance and liability.  There was a time when churches wouldn’t think of having liability insurance.  If you did have such a policy, it was cheaper than dirt for congregations.  You were trusted and there was the assumption that good church people would never sue their congregations or pastors.  There was the assumption (and statistics bore these assumptions out) that you would not be sued by an outside person. Sexual misconduct was not an issue for various reason. (Those reasons aren’t  the purpose of this entry.)   

In this litigious world, all that has changed.  Yes, it is still much less expensive to insure a pastor than a doctor.  Yet, no church or parachurch ministry should be without insurance.  And no ministry can afford to not think in terms of liability.  If, like The Special Gathering, you don’t own any property, you may feel that you are exempt from the need of this additional expense.  That is a false conclusion.

Working with a vulnerable population, a ministry within the mentally challenged community must be as “wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove” in regards to liability issues.  Whenever you take a group of people to camp or a retreat where there may be risk involved, you should be sure that your insurance covers the event. 

Each year, The Special Gathering takes our members to Camp/Retreat Agape.  It is a four day, three night event.  The contract with the campground we rent is not valid until they have received our Certificate of Insurance, listing them as ”additional insured.”  The golf cart company will not allow us to rent carts without this assurance from our insurance company.

In a way, this is an inexpensive safeguard for your members, volunteers and staff.  At The Special Gathering, we have been blessed with an executive director who has traveled far ahead of the curve in regard to these issues. 

Be sure that you and your ministry have the additional safeguard of good insurance.  We have found that GuideOne has been a good company.  There are a lot of other insurance companies who carry excellent liability policies.  Do you research, bite the bullet and get insurance.

What are some of the things you feel are needed in an insurance policy?  If you don’t have liability insurance, is there a reason?

In a bold move, Governor Charlie Crist has vetoed the additional 5 percent cuts in APD funding.  This is good news for those vulnerable adults and children who have disabilities. 

Thank you, Governor for putting the needs of people first.

It is an exciting time when we have new members who come to Special Gathering which is a ministry within the mentally challenged community.  We are an organization whose mission is evangelism and discipleship.  Therefore, we desire to be a welcoming place and a safety net for people who are developmentally disabled.

In the past weeks, we have had several new people who are attending.  This presents some unique circumstances.  Our first and foremost goal is that our new members become assimilated within the population with his/her fellow members, not become only associated with our volunteers.  Because our members love to be aligned with normal folks, this is our continuing first challenge. 

In the past, most of our members came from contacts made within the workshops.  Now, alternative placements have made assimilation more complicated.  People come from out-of-state. They have no placement or they work in the community.  They are not known by anyone.  They don’t have friends already in our program.

In our Melbourne group, we have a class of members who have been targeted as our leadership.  They are taught on a different level.  They are taught discipleship/servant-hood principles.  As part of their training, we ask that our leadership team take a new member under their wing and escort them around.  We want the leadership team to try and find a good fit for the new member in regard to their Bible study class and other elements of our worship.  Usually within a few weeks, the new member has found her own set of friends but this initial confrontation with us seems to go smoother if our members can work one-on-one with her.

In addition, I try to spend one-on-one time with each new member.  I have found that this is pretty essential.  I try to make a home visit before his first time at Special Gathering.  If possible, I will pick up the person for his first time at Special Gathering.  Of course, that is becoming harder and harder but this is a goal.  In that way, Sam is seen by the other members and by Sam, as my guest.  Because I’m the area director, this gives him a bit of status. 

Over the years, I’ve seen that the most important thing, however, is that the new member become aligned with our leadership team–rather than with me.  When we were smaller and our members weren’t as mature, I played a bigger part in making our new members comfortable.  Now, it is our leaders who are the essential element. 

To be brutally honest, this isn’t a task that our leadership team is comfortable with yet.  They still want to sit on the front row with their old friends.  However, I see small steps of maturity within our membership in this important area of discipleship.

What part do your leaders play in welcoming new members?  Do you have certain tasks that you assign to them?  Do they naturally want to help new members?

One of the best things about finding someone else who does what we do is that suddenly that feeling of lost wandering evaporates.  At The Special Gathering, which is a ministry within the mentally challenged community, we are exceptionally blessed because I can pick up the phone and communicate with three or four people who are fully employed in ministry with persons who are developmentally delayed.  However, Special Gathering isn’t the norm but the exception. 

Reality slaps you in the face when you find another person who is struggling out in the hinterlands and can’t believe that anyone else cares.  I found two lovely souls yesterday who are doing a wonderful work.  One woman has had a group home in our area for almost twenty years.  Somehow, she has stayed off the radar for all these years.  I found her yesterday.   I inquired if we could have lunch.  “Oh, I would have to bring my residents,” she said sheepishly. 

“I’d love that,”  I said.

At once her face brightened, ”You would?  Then I can go.  You name the time.” 

After that encounter I went to lunch with a delightful woman from Washington DC who is working within the mentally challenged community.  She is Catholic whose program is in an Episcopal church in the District.  (This kind of cooperation is normal within our circles.)  She holds a Prayer and Pizza night once a month and a social the other weeks.  She is a speech therapist who could not walk away from the spiritual needs of people who are cognitively disabled.   

Chattering like teenager girls, we were full of questions for each other.  She asked,  ”How did you get so many supporting churches?  How do you work with so many different denominations?  Why aren’t you teaching the rest of us how to do what you are doing?”    She took lots of notes and promised to e-mail all of us. 

I left the fast food restaurant understanding her loneliness.  I’m sure it’s the same feeling that missionaries in a foreign country would have when they encounter someone doing a similar work. 

I’m reminded of a simple story about a young child who began to scream when the thunder and lightning flashed during a storm.  His mother came into the dark room.  Putting her arms around him and holding him tightly, she comforted him, “You know Jesus is always with you.  You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I know,” the youngster replied, “but I need a skin face.” 

God understands that skin faces are important to all of us.  And what a blessing it is to find another skin face in the middle of the dark storm of life.

Have there be times that you have felt loneliness in the middle of a stormy spiritual battle?  Have you been able to find a skin face who can reflect the love of Jesus for you during that time?

God wants us to learn how to Share

I Timothy 6:18

Central Theme: Sharing must be an act of the heart.

Introduction—I told about my grandson not wanting to share his new toy.  I told my daughter who was upset with him that this would be natural.  I suggested that for her son to learn how to share cheerfully, there should be some things in his life that he didn’t have to share.

       I.     Have a member read I Timothy 6:18. 

              A. Sharing is an act of the heart.

              B. I am never impressed with people who give everything away.

              C. I don‘t believe that this is what the scripture is talking about when God says he wants us to learn how to share. 

                   1.  First, we should learn how to value what we have.

                   2.  Then sharing has meaning.

                   3.  I have seen that people who give away everything.  That is because they almost always know that someone will give them something new. That isn’t godly sharing.

      II.     Remember the widow who gave everything she had.

              1.  No one, even Jesus, was going to give her more.

              2.  Sharing must mean, I will give even though I will not get more back.

Conclusion—My grandson was willing to share his other toys with his friends and cousins when he knew that he did not have to give everything to her.

This is an e-mail I received from the Family Care Council.

The Florida Developmental Disabilities Council is now accepting applications for its Partners in Policymaking program. Here is some information about this excellent program:

 This program provides leadership and advocacy training that helps individuals with disabilities and their family members to be community leaders and to work effectively with the agencies that provide services. Participants are expected to attend six monthly sessions between June and November.

There is no cost to enroll. For more information, go to this link.

It is an amazing thing to realize that people that you’ve worked with for years have become your friends.  Yesterday I had lunch with the staff of a wonderful supporting church.  This congregation has fed us, supported us and loved us.  We’ve used their vans and shared their pulpit.  They have been gracious colleagues.  And they are my friends. 

On occasion I call and invite myself to lunch.  The church staff are all great comrades and they allow me to tag along.  It’s been about six months since I’ve been able to go with them but yesterday my schedule had a break.  I called and they invited me to join them for lunch.  As we sat talking and laughing, I was warmed by their love and genuine concern about me and The Special Gathering ministry. 

As area director of Special Gathering of Indian River, I can be regarded as neither fish nor fowl in ministry circles.  But my friends from this wonderful Sebastian church don’t care.  They love me. 

After lunch, I went to the Space Coast Area Transit office.  It’s been a couple of years since I’ve had a reason to pop into the main office and bus terminal.  It was old home week.  Even though they hear from me every week through faxes, we don’t often get to eye-ball each other.  We hugged and shared our lives. 

Within the mentally challenged community of professionals and staff, there is a knowing that few people fully understand what we do.  Coupled with  mutual respect, that understanding creates a bond of friendship that grows and increases over the years.  

We know the general public either look on us as super-human saints or idiots for doing what we do.  The truth is we are neither.  We are people who desire to see a group of deserving but vulnerable adults who live with disabilities receive the services that will allow them to live lives that are as normal as possible.  For the staff at Special Gathering, our mission is evanglizing and discipling, not social services.  But we honor and respect and desire to help hold up the arms those men and woman who do the necessary human service work. 

Ministry–no matter where it’s found–is not easy.  However, with friends who love you there are wonderfully bright day which shine with God’s love.  At the end of the day, I felt blessed to know that friendships have formed.  When I left the bus company, the head scheduler shouted after me, “You keep praying for us and we are going to pray for your family.”  I looked back and waved, several of my friends were still standing, smiling and waving back.  God is good.

 How do you reach out to form friendship within the professional community?  Do you feel this is an important part of your ministry?

Working with persons who are mentally challenged there are many things that other ministries don’t have to contend.  One of them is the receipt.  In youth ministry, Mom gives Joey $94 for the ticket to the theme park.  Joey gets his ticket.  The youth director does not need to receipt anyone.  However, in The Special Gathering and every ministry that works with people who are developmentally delayed, the receipt is all important.

Most group homes and even some parents will require a receipt for all purchases.  Therefore, I’ve learned to be prepared.  I’ve made up a simple receipt that says,

I have received from ______________   $__________ for______________.

Signed_______________

Here are some other awkward things that we’ve learned over the years at Special Gathering which is a ministry within the mentally challenged community.

• I keep extra blank receipts in my clipboard. 
• By the way, I have a clipboard that has an inside compartment for storage.  You can now buy them made specifically for teachers but I purchased mine years ago for construction workers.  It’s been a lifesaver. 
• Before I take people on a trip, I make up a checklist with everyone’s name.  Then I check them off when they get to the place we will meet, when they get on the van, each time we disembark and get back on the van.  During the day I check each person approximately three or four times.  I try to keep the lower functioning people with me or with a paid staff person.
• Most important, on these outings we work in concert with the County Recreation Department.  This is their trip–not ours.  This is a wonderful setup because their staff works out the details.  They are the ones responsible.  They assume the liability. 
• Years ago I had a small group of  parent/volunteers who would go with me.  Then I would divide the people into small groups.  We would all meet at a certain spot during the day.  Then I did my checks.  Now, I try to involve a smaller groups of people who are more independent for these excursion. 
• There have been times that I advertise this as a trip only for people who are independent.   I let parents and their professional staff  make the determination of their supervision levels.  I don’t attempt to make that call myself. 
• When someone gets lost, and they do get lost at times, I will stay with the group  or have a staff person stay with them, keeping everyone in one spot.  I usually pick a spot right next to the bathroom.  Then I go to search for the person or send a staff to search. 
• Of course, before we venture out, prayer is essential.  We pray that everyone will be safe and that God will protect us.  When we get back into the vans to go home, I also bathe the trip with prayer.  While God is our protection and guide, I know that He requires us to be vigilant and cautious.  He doesn’t often bless stupidity. 

What are some tricks you’ve learned in working with people who are developmentally delayed?

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed nothing more than a lively discussion of differing views.  These discussions stimulate my brain and make me think.  However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to tire of the confrontation.  Perhaps it’s getting older and wiser.  Perhaps it’s fatigue.  But if I think quickly enough, I now try to not respond.  I endeavor to sit and listen, wishing I’d not brought up the subject that turned into a potential sparring match.

Understand I still enjoy the free exchange of ideas.  I love to watch the talking heads on TV.  I delight in the blogs where political and social issues are bantered freely from one position to another.  I enjoy discussions and debate regarding theology.  However, I no longer want to be the person engaged in the fray.

It may be that my mind is no longer as agile or quick to respond.  Yet, I believe it’s more than that.  As program director of The Special Gathering which is a ministry within the mentally challenged community, I’ve noticed for years our members withdrawing from conversations when the issues turn from the trivial to weighty matters of State and finances.  When the flow of conversation becomes heavy with innuendo and nuances reflecting different shades of contrasting opinions, our members fade into their seats and wait for the discussion to cool to a slower burning flame.  Then they rejoin the talk with their banter and complaints.

Over the years, I sighed with regret that they are not able to be a part of the witty repertoire.  Now I understand better.  Why join a battle you don’t care about winning?  Why become embroiled in a discussion that you can barely follow?  Why seek to read minds and hearts when you can’t even decipher the motives of your own heart?

The Bible speaks of wisdom being a great virtue and I know that it is.  James even tells us that if we ask for wisdom God will give it to us and He won’t fuss at us for asking.  As I personally face new issues in my personal life, I’ve come to understand that much of the reticence I’ve discovered within the disability community.  I’ve found this may be wisdom, rather than disability.  

And, then, perhaps it could be I am not getting wiser,  just tired. 

Have you found that your members are not willing to enter conversations?  What have you been able to do to help them join?

Our prayers and blessings are extended to President Obama as he takes the oath of office.  It is an amazing thing that in my lifetime I’ve seen hate and discrimination turn into this wonderful event.

In the past two weeks, I’ve sat with ardent Republicans who worked feverishly to see another person elected president.  Each of them have expressed their joy and delight in this turn of events because President Obama is an African-American.  “It is an amazing thing that we can all rejoice in,” they have said.  “We are praying for him and his cabinet that they will succeed,” they conclude.

Each of us come from different places.  Life circumstances turn us in different directions, but Barak Obama is our president and we honor him.   This is proud day for our country and her people.  God bless American and our new president.

I read on the news crawler that our new president has sat with his girls and said, “Remember who your daddy really is.”   The Obama daughters call their dad, “our loving daddy.”  President Obama explained that he is not the sketches in the newspaper or the pictures on the TV but still their loving daddy.

Over the years, in ministering to people who are cognitively disabled at The Special Gathering, our only mission has been to evangelize and disciple people who are mentally challenged.  My greatest efforts in that mission have been to teach our members that our Father God is “our loving daddy.” 

The world–and even the church–has done a great job of teaching us that God is a cruel, vindictive personality that exacts pain and suffering whenever the slightest misdeed is performed by the worm people that he created.  However, that is not the picture presented in the Scriptures.  Of course, he is the God of justice and justice always requires punishment for misdeeds. 

Nevertheless, God sent his Son, Jesus, to take our punishment.  In the fullness of time, Jesus willingly came to empower us to be able to see how much our Father loves us.  I understand that this loving picture of redemption has even been interpreted as Divine Child Abuse–because God gave his Son.  Though that isn’t the picture presented in the Scriptures.  Jesus, being God, worked in concert with Father God in planning and executing this amazing plan of salvation.

And so our task as ministers of the Gospel will always be to proclaim and teach who our Father really is.  Loving, gracious, giving and merciful.

How do you endeavor to teach this timeless principle to your members?