I would like to talk about volunteering at Amberlea Church. There are still ways to volunteer, even in COVID times. Firstly, at Amberlea we believe in inclusion, even in our volunteer opportunities. You may ask yourself, how is this possible? How can my exceptional child or youth possibly participate?

Well, I am here to tell you that you can no matter your ability, everyone has something to offer. We want to build on your child’s abilities and give them confidence to be a part of a community that cares about them and that will help them achieve their goals, no matter how big or small that may be.

At Christmas time, our church did a Drive-Thru Live Nativity event. There were different stations with magi, shepherds and even live animals. It was a great community experience and we had so many volunteers for this outreach.

You may ask yourself, how could my child possibly be a part of this? Let me tell you that they can. As I mentioned to you in a previous blog, I have two teenagers on the autism spectrum. My son definitely has more outward challenges, than my daughter. So for this experience, we decided to volunteer as actors at one of the stations. We had to be outdoors, dress up like magi and then we just had to point and pick up a few items off the table and pretend we were doing things with them.

This turned out to be just up my son’s alley as he struggles with conversation, so he didn’t have to read or memorize any lines for this. We had a lot of fun dressing up and just being together with all the other volunteers. We got to wave at people in cars as they drove by, so it was very exciting for us! We also have another little boy in the church on the spectrum as well and he and his mom dressed up with us. He stayed for as long as his attention span would allow him and we all had lots of laughs and fun doing this together. We took pictures together and had such a great time re-living our experience later.

We as a church also had all the kids and youth create a Christmas pageant video that was uploaded to our Amberlea Church YouTube channel. Each family that wanted to be involved did so and was provided words to say and costumes to wear. You had to video tape your part and then send it to the church and they were all put together to create the Christmas story. It was a blast watching this at Christmas and everyone who participated did such a great job! Again, our son was able to do this and when he had lines, I wrote them out on a wipe board so that he could read them while I was doing the videotaping. Sometimes we had to do more than one take, but we had fun doing it.

What I have found is that I have to think creatively. I have to think of the strength of my kids and how I can use their talents in the activities that the church is doing. I find that kids with different needs can do anything, it just has to be approached sometimes in a different way.

There are many other examples that I can give you at Amberlea where exceptional children can not only participate but thrive. (We are looking forward to being part of the Easter Drive-Thru and virtual Easter play coming soon.) That is what we hope and wish for all of our children, no matter what. We want them to be included. We want them to smile and most of all we want them to know that they are loved, not only by the community but by God.

Matthew 19:14 – “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’”

God gives us the strength and ability to be the best parents we can be. We need to trust Him completely and we need to find love and support in God’s people. God has never ever let me down and I feel so lucky to be part of such an amazing congregation of people who care so much about our entire family.

By Shelly Wedge

Exceptional Family Ministry Coordinator, Amberlea Presbyterian Church