“Step Through the Fear” and into the Lives of Children with Disabilities

Brenda Darke offers insight into the lives of children with disabilities and their families as she reflects on her experience working in this area. Here are a few quotes that stood out to me as I listened to the interview.

“The scriptures are actually full of God’s heart for people with disabilities, even though there is a lot of misunderstanding on this issue. But one thing that I always call people’s attention to is Luke 14. Where there is Jesus teaching how to include people with disabilities in His kingdom. He goes out of his way and crosses barriers that other people are not prepared to cross. He teaches us in practice and by his word… that we should be including them in our church.”

“The statistics are that the situation of children with disabilities living in developing countries is always much worse. There are more children growing up in disadvantaged situations, in countries that are being developed, mostly related to high levels of poverty. If a child is born into a family in Latin America, they do not have the kind of support that might be available in countries in Europe, for instance. Even if the family is a middle class family or fairly well-to-do, there is such a drain on the resources that this family too becomes poor.”

“Huge, huge poverty actually provokes many disabilities in children because of poor antenatal care, poor diet, there are many birth accidents. They actually acquire disabilities directly because of their situation of poverty.”

“We just have to step through the fear and just begin by getting to know some children with disabilities and their families… we need to get along side them and begin to dialogue with the family.”

“I think [children with disabilities] teach us about ourselves. I think there is actually a spiritual issue in recognizing that the child with the disability is really no different. We may start off thinking, ‘Oh we are going to be able to do so much to help them and give them so much.’ But in my experience, we are usually the people who gain.”

Listen to the entire podcast for more from Brenda Darke.

Podcast Interview with Brenda Darke

Podcast - March 5th, 2008

In this episode, Dr. Edward Bradley interviews Brenda Darke, a leading expert in dealing with children with disabilities throughout Latin America.