Jerry was invited to speak at a C12 local leadership summit luncheon in Pennsylvania this summer. He spoke on Transparency in Leadership. He built upon an idea inspired by Craig Groeschel: Transparency + Empathy + Consistency = Trust. “It’s obvious to everybody in the room that I am in a …
This summer Jerry and Joan again worked with two camps, Breakaway in Florida and Camp Celebrate in Tennessee. At each camp, we were privileged to spend much of our time with the adult family members who attended—mostly moms and dads. Through one-on-one conversations and group discussions, we sought …
Here is a podcast from one of the people I mentor. Bill Copple has survived multiple brain injuries. I think that listening to this podcast will help you understand how people with brain injury work to overcome. A couple of times during the interview Bill says that he “hates his life” when I asked …
This blog is from Jerry’s workshop at the 2023 Family Cafe Conference in Orlando, Florida. To watch the video, click here. We all have that little voice inside our head that is constantly judging and criticizing us. We often refer to this voice as our inner critic. It can cause us to feel doubt, …
In our last post, Ideas to Help a Caregiver Care Again, I shared ways we can recognize and work through the feelings of weariness, overwork, loneliness, etc. that sometimes plaque caregivers. In this post, I’ll share some ideas to stay ahead of those feelings, or at least rebound once we’ve …
When people hear one of my speaking topics is Caregiving When You Just Don’t Care I get a number of tongue in cheek remarks, such as “Are you an example of not caring? Is that why you can speak about it?” Truth be told, YES! We all get weary from things we do over and over and over again. …
Disability and The Church conference sponsored by Key Ministries, near Cleveland, OH. Jerry’s speaking topic was To Grumble Less, Lament More. His talk was livestreamed. If you’d like to listen in, it’s just about 15 minutes.
Today we’d like to give you a peek into our email box and share a message we recently received. "On Sunday, a five- or six-year-old boy was brought to our Children’s Church. He is autistic and non-verbal. It didn’t go well for a few reasons. There wasn’t a heads-up until class started. We only had …
Summer is on the way! And for many, that means camp is right around the corner. Jerry and I, together, have spent about three years of our lives at camp. We each attended camps as kids. Before we met, we were each involved in directing and supporting camping ministries. Even after we married, we …
When you see someone with a disability in your community, what do you do? Jerry identified five responses he observed: Brave Little Soldier In this scenario, one looks at the person with pity and can only think of how difficult their life must be. Words don’t come, and you may just pat them on …