What Works For Us, Works For You

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This year we are excited to celebrate the larger community of Capernaum on our socials and blog!


Our global community

Our local community

Our volunteer community

Our student community

Our family community 

Our staff community


It is all ONE community.  We are interconnected through a shared mission of introducing adolescents with disabilities to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith.  And a shared vision of creating spaces of belonging in all these spaces around the world.  Join us this year as we share photos, videos, and stories of our #OneCommunity!


This month we hear from Christen Morrow Ara, Southwest Capernaum Coordinator, as she shares her thoughts on belonging and community.

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In March, many Young Life staff gathered across the USA to participate in Assigned Team Training - a gathering time for the people who will help run our camps this summer. One of my favorite parts of this annual gathering is that we get to see people from across our divisions who represent so many ministries.

I sat with staff friends who think about:

  • College students day and night - so their club “kids” drive and live on their own, and the way they do club and plan a spring break trip is unique. 
  • Teen moms - so car seats, Goldfish crackers, formula, and diapers are a part of everything they do. 
  • WyldLife - so their kids experienced the end of elementary school on Zoom and with masks so the awkwardness of middle school is next level.  Their hearts beat for these kids. 
  • High school ministry in such distinct settings… from small agricultural communities to the streets of Los Angeles.  
  • Our friends with disabilities who have more vulnerable immune systems - so they're finding a way to be in the spaces where they are in order to build relationships. 


Such unique callings, giftings, passions, and ways of being with kids, yet we are ONE community of staff and leaders who have been transformed by the ONE who has made us His own and allowed us to belong.  


The belonging we’ve experienced as those who have been adopted and given the right to be called sons and daughters of God (John 1:12) is something we long to extend and invite others into. The invitation to belong to this ONE community that is exquisitely diverse, encompasses all who God has created in love and for His purposes. 


As we talked through program (skit characters) and schedules, humor and music, gospel proclamation, and processing in cabins, I was struck by how our mission has learned how to extend such grace and hospitality to my friends who have disabilities. 


I’ve found that across the board, staff at camps and from areas, as well as our service center, are focused with us on this ONE mission and demonstrate world-class hospitality and accommodations to our friends! A wheelchair ramp? An extra space? Extra time? 1:1 leaders? Your own table? A special meal? A different Bible? Major adjustments to a new ride or building? Transportation? Noise-canceling headphones? YES! There is a resounding YES because we are all in it together.


When Nick Palermo began bringing his friends with disabilities to club, 37 years ago this month, it was new and scary. People didn’t know how to respond. Camp was the hardest thing he had ever done…. What is not familiar to us often is scary. What is new will cause us to have to re-posture, re-calibrate and respond thoughtfully to offer belonging. As I watch the accommodations being made for our friends with disabilities across the mission and in the microcosm of camping, I am struck by this, “What works for us, works for you…”


When we offer hospitality for our friends with disabilities, we find there are more kids who also benefit.  For instance:

  • When we create a space without steps or stairs, my friends in wheelchairs enter with ease but so does a kid who was injured in his basketball game last night and is using crutches. 
  • When we create an intentionally slower pace and make room for 1:1 conversations and connections, my friends with intellectual disabilities can keep up, but kids who are introverts, who are struggling with anxiety, or who are learning how to interact in this “new face-to-face world” coming out of the thick of Covid will benefit too. 
  • When we create “cabin time boxes” with alternative ways for my friends who may struggle to track with verbal processing to connect with the gospel, other kids who are still learning English, adapting to the culture, or have experienced trauma may be able to track too.


What works for the “furthest out kid” often benefits the whole. As Young Life, ONE mission, ONE community, ONE body reaching so many different kids, what works for my friends may just surprise you in how well it works for all kids!



- Christen Morrow Ara

Pictured in the middle with fellow staff running a Capernaum camp week


Pictured on top - a Capernaum camp trip from Greater Pasadena, CA



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Each month this year we will be sharing about community and belonging within Young Life and Capernaum.  Follow along with us!

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