Maryland church creates ministry to reach out to disabled people

From The Gazette in Maryland. In the picture, (from left) Pastor Ellis Moore, Wunmi Lawal, Jeannette Kah Le Guil, Deacon Elizabeth Rivas, Nchinda Fuanghene and Juan Rivas.

Jeannette Kah Le Guil wants to change the definition of what it means to be disabled.
The Wheaton resident is using her Glenmont church to propel the idea that every human is, at one point or another, disabled. Some are just more obvious than others, she says.

"People tend to see disability as a physical ... should I say impairment? ... Or maybe something that is weird, something that people should stay away from," she said in an interview at Georgia Avenue Baptist Church last week.

But that definition fails to grasp the whole concept, Kah Le Guil argues.

"People with a disability can be any individual whose temporary physical, mental, emotional, financial or spiritual condition prevents them from completing daily tasks or from fully participating in society," she said.

In December, the church launched a ministry to explain that very point while simultaneously reaching out to the neighborhood's disabled population to empower them to participate in daily life. Through partnerships with various regional faith-based disability organizations, Georgia Avenue Baptist will hold workshops, classes and monthly meetings for both people who are disabled and people who aren't in hopes of harmonizing the two cultures.

Classes will focus on empowering people who are disabled, from free sign language and Braille lessons to Sunday Bible school. The workshops will discuss stereotypes of disabilities, their impact on society and how people can better integrate those who are disabled into the mainstream.

Certain aspects of the ministry will have a Christian tone, but much of the focus will be on lifting the veil of thought that says people who are disabled can't function in daily life.

At stake is the very definition of a disability, said Kah Le Guil, who will serve as the ministry's director.

"We want to change perceptions," she said.

The motivation for the ministry is Kah Le Guil's 28-year-old daughter, who has Cerebral Palsy and has struggled her whole life to be treated like everyone else, her mother said. In the late 1990s, Kay Le Guil moved her daughter back to the family's native Cote d'Ivoire to search for a school that was willing to treat her like any other student.

The same attempt had failed in both public and private schools in Maryland. Near and far, she was always told the same thing: "No," "We cannot accommodate her unless she's sitting in the back of the classroom," Kah Le Guil said. "It was the same nightmare."

During her struggles, Kah Le Guil realized that people across the globe saw her daughter as a disabled person instead of a person who happens to be disabled.

"That's when my eyes kind of opened," Kah Le Guil said.

When she realized what was preventing her daughter from receiving equal treatment, she started the United for the Love of Children in 1999, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that promotes a new way of looking at people who are disabled through fundraising, volunteering and national conferences, most of which take place in Africa and some of which she said have included the president of Cote d'Ivoire.

"There are people in the country that are left out," Kah Le Guil said of her organization's mission.

But Kah Le Guil still felt something was missing. To really make a difference, she needed to stretch her efforts beyond nonprofits and government to everyday society. And her church provided the perfect launching point for such a project.

"I immediately saw that this was a burden on her heart. This could be something the Lord was up to doing here," said Ellis Moore, her pastor at Georgia Avenue Baptist.

Kah Le Guil said the ministry comes at a perfect time, as people with disabilities and their loved ones have stepped up demands for equal treatment. One recent success is the United Nations' 2007 adoption of an international convention of rights for people with disabilities, which affirms full and equal employment for people who are disabled.

Where people who are disabled have the most trouble integrating is in places the government doesn't penetrate — in neighborhoods, churches, local schools and the private industry, she said.

"Once these people are out there in society, they are kind of left out," Kah Le Guil said. "Beyond financial and emotional help, we want to help them integrate into society."

Wheaton resident Michael Mack, whose 23-year-old son has a developmental disability, said that's a noble goal. His son grew up actively participating in a local synagogue, whose organizers "went out of their way to make things nice for him."

Without that extra effort, people who are disabled are usually "integrated on the fringe" of life, which is usually the result of seeing the disability instead of the person, Mack said.

"We see them as people God loves and that they have something to offer — uniquely, sometimes," Moore said.