To Our Readers:

There is an old adage that goes if the teacher does not learn from his students, his students have not learned either. In my tenure of teaching college students, I find a lot of truth in the adage. Over the years, I have learned facts, new ways of thinking about a subject, insights and the like from my students.

These days, a special joy I have comes from my distance learning students who are working on the Disability Ministry Certificate through Johnson Bible College near Knoxville, Tennessee.

One of my current students is Sharon Post. She lives in Ripley, New York and is mother to a son with severe congenital hydrocephalus. When he moved to a group home where he receives total care, Sharon returned to college (at age 50). In July, she will receive her bachelors degree. Concurrently, she has worked on the Certificate in Disability Ministry.

One assignment in the first course toward the Certificate requires the student to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to note Jesus encounters with people with disabilities, and then to write an essay about His ministry methods with people with disabilities.

Sharon did the assignment in fine style. The last paragraph of the essay, The Ministry of Jesus to People with Disabilities, especially moved me. Sharon’s words remind us to practice doing what Jesus did when ministering with our friends with disabilities. Then she makes a poignant statement. It is important that while, like Jesus, we touch people with disabilities, we must let them touch us.

I pray you will be blessed by my student’s words as they blessed me.

Click to read Sharon’s essay: The_Ministry_of_Jesus_to_People_with_Disabilities.pdf.

Jim Pierson

July, 2008