Reflecting the Body of Christ through Differing Abilities

Written by Melody Franco

While a student at Duke Divinity School I received an internship placement at a local nonprofit, Reality Ministries. I searched the organization online and read in bold letters across the homepage, “where people of all abilities share life together,” and immediately thought, “Oh no, there must be some mistake… I am not qualified for this.” I grew up having no family members or close friends with an intellectual or developmental disability (IDD) and at the time would have struggled to name five people I knew with an IDD, and zero friends.

How about you? What do you think of when you hear “disability”?

Perhaps you identify closely with the disability community - you are part of it.

Perhaps you have a child with an IDD or grew up with a sibling, family member, or neighbor with a disability - you have a name and a face.

Perhaps a particular person does not come to mind, but a vague category for a group of people - you have stereotypes. 

If you don’t have people in your social sphere with differing abilities, it’s not because the disability community is nonexistent in the Triangle. According to the CDC, more than one in four adults in the United States have some sort of disability. However, the disability community remains at the periphery of society with less access to transportation, independent living, meaningful jobs, higher education, and social involvement. Yet, many of us have not given much thought to the absence of the disability community from our lives. I certainly hadn’t until joining Reality Ministries three years ago. 

I now work at Reality full-time as the community leader to a group of sixty adults with and without IDDs. Multiple times a week we sing, play, eat, and study Scripture together. And there are four other community groups doing this same thing - two hundred fifty participants with IDDs, each with unique interests, quirks, temperaments, longings, and fears, just like you and me. 

This past spring, the Reality staff reflected on 1 Corinthians 12 in which the human body is used as a metaphor for the body of Christ. Verses 21-22 say, “The eye can never say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’ The head can’t say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you.’ In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary.”

Reality Ministries does not exist to serve adults with disabilities. It exists to reflect the kingdom of God, where all people are valued as integral. We believe that we need and belong to each other. We can never look someone in the eye and say, “I don’t need you.”

My time at Reality has challenged me to believe with greater conviction that I need the person I have yet to know. And perhaps, once I get to know them, I won’t be able to imagine life without them. 

__

I welcome you to reach out if you’d like to talk more about your own relationship with disability and/or the work of Reality Ministries. Email me at melody@realityministries.org.

Our Road in Foster Care

Written by Sydnie Thomas

Last year there were over 11,000 children in North Carolina in Foster Care and there were less than 6,000 licensed foster homes.

4% to 10% of these children in the US are in group homes because there is not an individual home that can take them.

9% of children age out of foster care.

53% to 80% are separated from their siblings.

In 2025 there were over 330,000 children in foster care. There are over 350,000 churches in the US. If every church had one family foster, then every child would have a home.

After years of discussion, meeting with other foster parents, and deep prayer, my husband Caleb and I decided to foster at the beginning of 2025.

We didn’t decide to become foster parents because we couldn’t have biological children (that is something we don’t know yet). Honestly, we decided to foster because we couldn’t find a good enough reason for us not to. Rest assured, we thought through the reasons…

“It will be too hard, we’ll get too attached, it’s too sad, it’s too scary, we’re already too busy, the kids will be too difficult”. These are all thoughts we encountered. What we found though, was that when we countered these fears with scripture, God’s word transcended each one.

• It will be too hard - “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

• We’ll get too attached - “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” 1 John 4:18 (ESV)

• It’s too sad - “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18 (NIV)

• It’s too scary - “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 (NLT)

• We’re already too busy - “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

• The kids will be too difficult - “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13 (NIV)

With each thought we had that told us why we shouldn’t foster, we saw God’s word telling us why we should. However, this is not an easy road that we are on.

Our first placement, which many of you may remember, were removed from our home and placed in kinship (they are still in the foster system, just live with a distant relative). Our hearts were, and still are, completely shattered. Giving our children to others to love and walking away was by far the hardest thing we have ever done, but we would do it every day if it means providing a safe, loving and God fearing home for our kids in the meantime.

Knowing the ins and outs of why our kids are no longer with their bio parents is heartbreaking. We have cried many tears grieving the life they don’t have but we will take their burden any day for the chance of them knowing Jesus.

Because of what we found in scripture, we see that God has equipped and called his church for the mission of foster care. James 1:27 says “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you” (NLT). When Caleb and I became foster parents, we understood that this decision would require sacrifice on our end. We understood that it would be hard and that it would come with pain (of which we bear only a fraction compared to a child’s birth family). By God’s grace and through his strength, we take on the challenge of fostering. A challenge we’re not meant to take on by relying on our own power, but by abiding in his ultimate protection.

I believe that even in our church where we have multiple families who have or are currently fostering, we have many more families that can foster and need to challenge their own hearts to see if they are willing to enter into the messiness of the Gospel. I want to encourage you to think through if you could be a fostering home, if you could step into the messiness, or if you could step into supporting those who do foster (through giving meals, providing clothes or formula, babysitting for a date night, etc). I challenge you to take the time to pray, to fast, to talk with others. Step out of your comfort zone and step into the Gospel by fostering.

Please prayerfully consider if you could be a foster family.

If you’d like to learn more, please come to Waypoint’s Informational Foster Care Brunch on Saturday, September 5th.

Statistics from https://cafo.org/foster-care-statistics/

Youth Mission Trip Reflection 2026

Written by Sean Gilland

Here at Waypoint, every summer we do a Youth Mission Trip (which means no parents unless they are volunteers for the Youth) where we go away from the Triangle to help and serve other people. Serving is not the only thing we do, we also hangout and build friendships within the Youth Group, learn more about God, and ultimately have a great time.

My name is Sean and I’m part of the Waypoint Group and a rising 7th grader. In this blog, I’ll be telling you about my first experience so maybe you’ll be inspired to do a Youth Mission Trip or just so you can learn what this Youth Mission Trip is all about:

This year’s Mission Trip destination was Knoxville, Tennessee and we partnered up with Next Step Ministries. They led us with sermons, songs, organizing our jobs, providing food for us, and leading us alongside the Waypoint Youth leaders. Our basecamp, in which we would sleep, eat and hangout, was at a United Methodist Church. It was a nice place overall.

Now, this was my first Youth Mission Trip. We had to fill out a form a couple months back that basically gave parents permission for their child to go. There was also a part where the Youth and the parents had to fill out for their children. It went like this: From 1-5 how skilled were they at certain areas like painting, using a ladder, etc. I put 1-2 on all of them so I was a bit worried I would get boring jobs but they ended up not being as bad as expected and were actually pretty engaging and “enjoyable” jobs (in the sense that I had tasks to do and I wouldn’t just hang around the whole time. But truly, jokes aside, it was great to serve people and to be together as a church community).

On the afternoon of the first day, everyone was led into the sanctuary. We were split up into different groups which had certain jobs and workstations. We were also introduced to a new series that we would be doing throughout the 5 days called, “The Heart of The Father” (by Francis Chan). It was centered around what God’s character is like and what he wants for us and how he shows Himself to us in everyday life. We would be doing a morning devotional, a lunch devotion, and evening programming.

Now you might be wondering what we did during those three things, especially asking, “What is programming?” But before we talk about that, I want to get you some more context on what a usual workday would look like:

I was put into a group called FISH. FISH is a Food Hospitality Pantry where we serve other people by giving them food no matter their status, income, religion, gender orientation etc. Before we went serving people food, we had to go into a warehouse and sort food out into categories. Now, you may think at first glance that sorting food would be uninteresting and I won’t say it wasn’t, at some points it was uninteresting but it was oddly satisfying and enjoyable overall, seeing the food being sorted and our efficiency going up. On the second night, we were put in new groups. I was (surprisingly) put in Construction. We were building a new deck for the homeowner as the old deck wasn’t looking too good. The group before us already did old deck demolition and set in the new deck foundations. Over the course of the next two days, we got the deck boards and railings done and started on the ramp that would go with the deck. Serving was a really great thing for me to do because I don’t really serve very much in my own city and serving other people is a really healthy part of life. And serving was fun and I realized how much that serving other people could impact other people, especially more at FISH pantries. We had heard stories from the Next Step leader that was leading FISH that FISH was a sanctuary for the people who came and she emphasised how much our serving really did affect these people (in a good way) as well as the leaders at FISH. Serving other people really is one of our purposes here on Earth and is rewarding, seeing how the people really do appreciate us just volunteering for a day.

A typical workday would go like this:

First, wake up, get ready, eat breakfast and after, go to the sanctuary and do a 20 minute morning devotional in quietness. Now, this, at first thought, invoked boredom in me. 20 minutes of quietness doing a devotional? I can’t even get through a simple devotional without getting uninterested on the 2nd day of doing it and start doing it less and less frequently. But surprisingly, it was peaceful, engaging and enjoyable, reading about God in a short little passage, answering simple questions that made me reflect back and made me ponder my thoughts. And to my surprise, before I knew it, the 20 minutes were over and we had to go to our workstations. I guess, the way that the devotional was in a quiet, focused room where there was no distraction where you could just swipe out of the devotional and do another activity so quick, or just the way it was presented and the way it was structured but whatever it was, it made me feel that it was less than just a routine and more of something that would help give a good start to my day or a time of peacefulness.

The rest of the day usually continued with work. And when we would have lunch at work, we would have lunch devotionals. They have different passages than the breakfast devotional but still focus on God’s character, what he wants for us and how he appears in everyday life. Unlike the devotional in the morning though, with a quiet 20 minutes where we silently read a passage and reflect and answer the provided questions, these devotionals are discussion based devotionals. The person who will lead the devotional will read a little passage and then read a question. Then we will discuss it with everyone being able to speak up about their thoughts on the question. This was also enjoyable and engaging, being able to get everyone’s point of views on the question and it was a good time to have community with everyone. Instead of reflecting back on ourselves with God, we were able to connect ourselves as a group with God. People would sometimes share some stories, some opinions, and we would go on topics that were a little less serious. The devotional opened up a great discussion and I am glad of that.

When we got back from work we would just have free time and then showers and then we would eat dinner and then have programming. To answer the question of, “What is programming?”, programming was when we all shuffled back into the sanctuary. It was structured more like a typical Sunday service. We would be introduced to a video on the series, “The Heart of The Father” by Francis Chan. He would talk to us in the video about his life and how God helped him in his life, etc. He would tell us more about God’s character and different aspects of that in each video. Then one of the Next Step leaders would do a sermon, not particularly about the video but related to it. We would also sing songs and the beginning and end of each programming session. We might also do a little activity during programming, for example, one of them was writing one thing that we have felt guilty or shame about and nail it (literally) on a wooden cross. We would give our worries and shame and guilt to the father. Another activity we did was footwashing (this took place in the Fellowship Hall). Oh! And I forgot one thing about our programming. After the first song we would split into our crews (jobs) and do, “Yay God!”s. In each crew, we would discuss how we saw God working throughout the day. We pick representatives to say what our Yay God was (with many other stuff like our chant that we would’ve already created, and the answer to a funny question). These “Yay God!”s that we did every night made me reflect back on my day and help me realize that God is always working somehow in our day whether it’s big or small and that he’s never not there. It also helps me, when in the day, to try to find ways God is working through people, ourselves or other things.

I’ve learned a lot of things on this Youth Mission trip. And not just about God, about the people surrounding me, how to use a nail drill (or whatever it’s called) or about the work we’re doing and how it can actually make a difference in someone’s life, whether big or small.

Reflecting back on this experience, I’ve realized that I really do enjoy it, and I would do it again. And to those who haven’t done it yet:

No one’s forcing you to do a mission trip. I may not be able to 100% guarantee that it will be fun but I can 99.99% guarantee that it will be a great time to have fellowship with the youth, learn more about God and find more joy in that and make some great and special memories…

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” -Galatians 6:9 NIV

-Sean from Waypoint Youth