YL Capernaum Everywhere

  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 ! For February, we hear from Tasha Taylor, Midwest Capernaum Coordinator, as she shares her thoughts on belonging and community. ………………… I have been thinking about marginalization a lot in recent years and in one of my classes at Western Theological Seminary called Ministry and the Margins with Dr. Ben Conner, we learned about five ways people are marginalized through power dynamics: According to R...

Ubuntu is a phrase from South African bantu languages that translates as "A person is a person through other persons" or "I am because we are.”   Desmond Tutu’s ministry and life was rooted in this phrase and philosophy.  In his book No Future Without Forgiveness he says, “‘I am a person because I belong, I participate, I share.’ A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished or treated as if they were less than who they are.”  We believe these powerful ideas also link to the body of Christ language found in 1 Corinthians 12 where it is written that we are all indispensable and interdependent.   In Capernaum, we are rooted in the truth that each person belongs to the greater whole.  We are incomplete without ea...

Thank you Young Life Allen, TX for this story! Avery has been involved in Capernaum for years now. She has always been consistently at club, open and talkative in Campaigners, and succeeded at camp.  Throughout the years she participated in Capernaum it was clear that she had God-given leadership skills. She is always looking to help and serve others, always putting them before herself.  When it was time for Avery to graduate Capernaum, her leader knew she was ready to be a leader. They met together on multiple occasions to talk about the difference between participating as a Capernaum friend and serving as a leader - she was up for the challenge!  Avery and her leader continued to train together, learning all of the essentials to being a leader and serving from an overflow of love from Christ. This past summer Avery got to take her leadership to the next level as an official leader on our Carolina Point trip. She was so excited to see some of the be...

Thank you for this story YL Capernaum Phoenix! What a beautiful picture of meeting your friends where they are, so that the Gospel can take hold and transform! When I first met Claire, it wasn’t immediately evident to me that she has an intellectual disability. You see, Claire, like so many of our friends, has intellectual challenges that have a huge impact on her day to day life, yet are unseen by the naked eye. People see her and expect a typically functioning young woman in the midst of adolescence. What they don’t realize is processing, understanding and relationships come much more slowly for Claire. Even with the loving support of a Christian family that was active in the church, Claire struggled to believe that the woman, that God made her to be, was good enough. This led to some risky behaviors in high school aimed at feeling loved, resulting in low self-esteem and a deep longing and pain to be accepted by her peers and the world around her. Claire began coming to Capernaum c...

Thank you, Niccole "Baldi" Ryan, Area Director-West Valley Young Life for this story! On a warm summer evening I stood on a soggy pool deck listening to the squeals of teenagers slipping down a water slide. There were Young Life leaders and kids everywhere. Our area was having our annual summer pool party. There was something entirely different about this night, something one could miss if he or she didn’t know what to look for. Upon further inspection you would find seven teen moms with babies, a dozen or so Capernaum friends, Capernaum parents, Wyldlife kids and literal scores of kids from traditional Young Life clubs. It was hard to not have my eyes overcome with tears as I poured spoonful after giant spoonful of simmering nacho cheese over hot Cheetos for kids to munch on. My semi-watery eyes eventually landed on two individuals playing volleyball—Rocky and Pierce. About a year ago Rocky jumped in as a Capernaum leader and Pierce has been a part of Capernaum club f...

Our friends in North Fulton Capernaum went through this activity as a leadership team! It’s such a great way to have fun as a team, to identify everyone’s strengths more deeply than before and to see how those strengths apply to our ministry settings in Capernaum! As your semester is beginning, have fun getting to know your team with this fun activity! It could also be used to see if there are any types of people that you are lacking for you team so that you can pray for specifically for them to join you. We know that every type of leader is important in our ministries and our friends in Capernaum experience Christ through each one of us! Plus, this could be a fun activity to do with some of your Capernaum friends in campaigners! A great start towards identifying their gifts and how God may use those to impact others for His kingdom. Thanks N. Fulton Capernaum!

Seventeen years ago I met Virginia at Del Mar high school and it took us an entire year to talk her mom into letting Virginia come to club! Here she is in the front row serving as a leader for YL Capernaum in San Jose.  Virginia has grown from a shy young girl to a bold and brave woman of God. She has learned the gift of servant leadership and truly loves serving others. She has learned two very important truths: God has made her in his image on purpose and for a purpose! She is way more capable than she ever dreamed. Virginia loves Young Life and how it has helped her grow deep in Christ!

Throughout the year, we want to highlight some attributes that we see as being part of our YL Capernaum culture.  This month, we highlight, creativity and tenacity. I (Christen Morrow Ara) recently was invited to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of Young Life in Peru. What a gift to be with leaders, staff, committee, and students that ranged an era of 50 years of ministry in my second home of Lima, Peru. I was greeted at the entrance of the celebration banquet by high school students serving, much like a Young Life banquet in your hometown. At the door, I met high school students with disabilities there with their mothers. Of course, this was where I wanted to be and there was so much joy in meeting them and hearing their stories. Mothers, through tears expressed to me what it meant that we had sewn the seed of Capernaum into Peruvian soil 14 years ago when their children were infants with brand new diagnoses, and no one had vision for their kids’ social inclusion let along ...

Thank you Isaiah from Highland Park, TX for this blog! For me YL Capernaum has always given me so much more than I could ever give to it. It has been a constant theme throughout my entire time being a part of this ministry. Every time I feel like I can pat myself on the back for doing something, God swoops in and blows me away with the way he works through these kids. As followers of Christ we strive every day to be like him, to live the way he lives. We do that to be changed by Christ, to bear the fruits that he describes. We hope that through our ministry we can plant seeds in others; in hopes to one day see those seeds, through the work of the Lord, bear fruit in those individuals. When I think of Capernaum I think of joy. The unconditional joy I see in our friends has always kept me coming back. No matter what my work schedule looked like I could never miss club, campaigners or any camp trip. The joy our friends display is infectious and I never wanted to miss a minu...

I remember the moment like it was yesterday.  I was walking across Southwind, night one of a Capernaum week.  All of the campers were moving from one event to club and I asked a girl if she was having fun.  She stopped in her tracks, jumped up and down, saying, “Yes, this place is the greatest!  Look they even have water fountains for us!” When I think about that moment, my mind floods with others that are so similar.  A girl who said her favorite part of camp was a hot shower.  A boy who couldn’t get past the fact that the kitchen made him a sandwich instead of the meal that was being served.  And on and on the list goes.  Our campers are overwhelmed with gratitude.  Whether it’s a small thing, like sandwiches and water fountains, or a large thing like a wheelchair that allows them to roll right into the beautiful, zero entry pool at Carolina Point, our friends swell with gratitude.  They ooze it from every pore; they express i...

In May 2016 the Midwest Division of Young Life created a strategic plan that included intentionality toward collaborating with like-minded organizations.  A group of 6 YL staff supervised by the YL Training Department- “Mission Movers” conducted research and created a template outlining the principles that could guide us forward in developing sustainable collaborations that would benefit kids toward whole and Christ like care.   This is a short sheet on their findings. As we transition our Capernaum friends toward life long Christian community these can be very helpful guidelines. WHY Healthy Collaborations are IMPORTANT We can model a fuller model of the Body of Christ. We can better ensure kids involved in life long Christian community. We can more fully serve kids as we create access to more holistic programs. We can create opportunities to learn from others. We will have more engaged adults in kid’s lives. As we serve we may have something to offer other orga...

As Young Life leaders, we always want to be students of the teenage culture. It’s easy for us to consider this when it comes to songs for club, movies, musicians and sports but we often don’t consider the other elements of culture.   What language is being used around disability? How are schools progressing with students with disabilities?   What trainings are being offered in the community around topics that are sensitive or specific in the world of disability?   Let’s not just be learners of iTunes top song picks but of our friends as a whole.   One of the places that we see this the most is in language.   It’s also the area where we get asked the   Here’s what we are learning- it is dignifying to say “teenagers with disabilities”, “teenagers with differing abilities” and “teenagers with diverse abilities”.   It is not dignifying to use the term “special needs”.   And also, we always want to speak in person first language.   An example...

Message from Pam Harmon, VP YL Capernaum Ministry As we think and pray about healthy sexuality within our mission, I am reminded that "People with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted at a rate more than seven times that for people without disabilities.” In this time when many women are courageously posting “Me too,” I wonder how many of our Capernaum friends need to have the opportunity for someone to hear them say, “Me too." Please read this article and then share it with other staff and volunteers to increase our awareness of the need to watch for signs of abuse and of our need to have conversations with our friends around the best ways to protect themselves from sexual harassment. Let’s not be unaware that we are living life with a community of people who are very vulnerable. Here is the link… https://www.npr.org/2018/01/09/572929725/for-some-with-intellectual-disabilities-ending-abuse-starts-with-sex-ed If you’re not sure how to engage in this...

By Sara Webb- Western Great Lakes Regional Coordinator This fall I have participated in a book club at Calvin College. Together we read and discussed the book Becoming Friends of Time: Disability, Timefullness, and Gentle Discipleship by John Swinton. Before this I had never thought so intentionally about time. After a morning of getting my middle school aged child off to school, I realized I may have a very unhealthy relationship with time. Here is how my morning sounded: “It is time to get up, please don’t be late.”   “Does it really take you that long to get dressed?”   “What are you doing in there?”   “I wish you would have thought about this last night, we just don’t have time to do this in the morning.”   “Is what you are doing right now a good use of your time?”   “How long does it take you to eat? It is almost time to leave.” In the short time with my child that morning, almost everything I said had to do with time. Time is such a driving f...

This article by Joni Eareckson Tada is featured in the Beyond Suffering Bible . "A Biblical View on the Sanctity of Life", is thought provoking and a resource for you.  Permission has been granted by Joni and Friends to share.

Great ways for campaigners to be leaders on club day! 1. Pray! 2. Invite their friends to club. 3. Post pictures from club on all of their favorite social media sites. 4. Let their leaders know when events are happening at school, Special Olympics and other cool things that they are involved in so that leaders can go and they can share during Friends News 5. Wear YL gear! 6. Wait for the new friends that they invited at the door. 7. Introduce yourself to new people at club. 8. Let other people at your table get served their food first. 9. Help clean up after the meal/snack. 10. Be an “oh boy” leader and let your excitement catch on! 11. Cheer for kids who are participating in games. 12. Pray with the leader giving the talk. 13. Listen during the talk and help others do the same. 14. Tell your new friends at club how glad you are that they came. 15. Journal with words or pictures about what you learned about at club.

As Capernaum continues to grow, our leadership team thought that it may be helpful to compile some of the results of that movement into one document. The gift of this post is that it shows us so many of the places that we get to celebrate as a mission! New kids, more kids, kids experiencing being valued and honored, kids meeting Jesus, kids growing in their faith, kids having options for camping experiences, more training and more awareness that we are better together! Join us in taking some time to celebrate as you read, praising God for all that He’s doing with our friends and our ministries! We also hope that as you read this, it will draw you to pray for the specific ways that your ministry can continue to grow and develop to best serve adolescents with disabilities in your area! Please note that these are not policies and really anything new, but instead a clear picture of the movement and growth within Capernaum. If you have any questions or would like to talk about a...

Blog Post by Derek Cormell, New Mexico/El Paso Regional Capernaum Coordinator I had the privilege of meeting Arturo a couple of months ago. Arturo loves Jesus deeply and has a special care for and understanding of disability… he also has Cerebral Palsy.  Arturo and I sat down to talk about the mission of Young Life to reach every kid and how at Jesus’ table there is room for everyone! Arturo expressed that he had been in prayer for some time for a vehicle through which to proclaim the Gospel to people with disabilities in a relational way, little did he know, he was praying for what we do in Young Life.  We also were unaware that our divisional team has been praying for Capernaum to begin in the city of El Paso. Arturo has joined our local high school Young Life team and is currently in new leader training.  Our prayer is that soon, as we get a community of caring adults around Capernaum, Arturo will be a Capernaum leader here in El Paso! In the meantime, we a...

Are you as excited as I am about YL Forward? YL Capernaum is positioned to serve and lead as we go Deeper In Christ through discipleship; go Together as we build a diverse, global team; go for more Innovation as we constantly improve the way we reach the next community with the gospel; and go for more Growth as God calls us to expand God’s kingdom in schools, in communities, in cities - throughout the U.S. and around the world. As we read Young Life’s values moving Forward, let’s listen to the ways in which we have the opportunity to lead and serve within our context: 1. The Gospel - Living according to and communicating the whole gospel of Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to communicate the good news of Jesus’ extravagant love for our friends through our actions and our words! 2. Scripture - Acting under the authority of Scripture and relying on the Holy Spirit to empower our ministry. Let’s be sure we are first spending time in God’s Word and praying for the power of th...

Great ways for campaigners to be leaders on club day! 1. Pray! 2. Invite their friends to club. 3. Post pictures from club on all of their favorite social media sites. 4. Let their leaders know when events are happening at school, Special Olympics and other cool things that they are involved in so that leaders can go and they can share during Friends News 5. Wear YL gear! 6. Wait for the new friends that they invited at the door. 7. Introduce yourself to new people at club. 8. Let other people at your table get served their food first. 9. Help clean up after the meal/snack. 10. Be an “oh boy” leader and let your excitement catch on! 11. Cheer for kids who are participating in games. 12. Pray with the leader giving the talk. 13. Listen during the talk and help others do the same. 14. Tell your new friends at club how glad you are that they came. 15. Journal with words or pictures about what you learned about at club.