East Fairfield United Methodist Church - Back to Home Page
East Fairfield UMC Offers Program for Special Needs Children and Their Families
The Guardian Angels Support Group is a Christ Based and Parent to Parent Support Group for parents, caregivers and loved ones of children with special needs. We accept anyone who wants to come...and we accept any type of special need from MR/DD, Chronic Illness, Medically Fragile Children, Learning Disabilities, ADD/ADHD, Birth Defects, Terminal Children and much, much more. We also have many biological, foster and adoptive parents and children as well as legal guardians in our group.
The Guardian Angels meet on the 1st, 3rd and 4th Tuesdays of each month at the East Fairfield United Methodist Church from 6:00-8:30 P.M. with childcare provided. We always begin our evening with prayer and a family style dinner, then we move onto our meetings while our children play, sing and learn that they are loved and special just the way that they are!
In our support group meetings we support each other through prayer, sharing life learned experiences, and resources found by our parents, volunteers and staff. We work very hard to make our group a safe haven, because everything said in our meetings is to stay in our meetings. We want everyone to feel comfortable sharing their deepest concerns, fears and cares...
We spend as much time as possible in our meetings encouraging and helping each other to be successful in our adventures as parents and loved ones of children with special needs. Empowerment is a huge part of being a successful parent/loved one... and we spend a lot of time helping our members to help themselves instead of simply doing everything for them. That way, we are always learning to be the very best parents/loved ones that we can be instead of feeling like a failure while someone else is fixing our problems.
Once a month, usually on the 3rd Tuesday, we have a trainer come in and provide a training on a topic on which our current families are in need of education on. We usually work with The Ohio Coalition for the Education of Children With Special Needs, but we also have other trainers who come in when need be. All trainings are free, with dinner and childcare...and we keep with the usual Guardian Angels time frame.
On the 3rd Friday of each month from 6:00-8:30 P.M., we hold our monthly Jesus Party. This is a happy, fun and high energy night devoted to our children and their families. We simply give our children a place and a time where they are accepted as they are...and give them the opportunity to do things that they aren't usually able to do. The thing that we found out when we began working with our families is that once a special needs child comes into the picture, generally social functions all but stop because of the un-acceptance and misunderstanding attitude of the public. We work very hard to give our families one night a month to get out and enjoy themselves together as a family, where there are volunteers who love their children as Christ would love them...completely and as they are!
We begin our Jesus Party with prayer and supper. Then we move onto games, fun, puppet shows and then spend the rest of the night fellowshiping and playing as hard as we can! Jesus loves our families and our children. Not one of our children are a mistake...so we need to spend as much of our time as possible making sure that each and every one of them (as well as us, the parents) understand that!
Our goals with this ministry are to help our parents be the very best parents that they can be, and to help them and their children be a successful family. We simply want to embrace them all with as much love and acceptance as possible! We also want our children to grow up to be productive members of society...and to have a healthy self esteem. They need to know without a doubt that they are loved by God, and that they are special to us...and that nothing will ever change that!
The Guardian Angels Support Group and Special Needs Ministry is an outreach~ ministry provided by the East Fairfield United Methodist Church...and we strive to love others using the life and love lessons of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 13:8 promises us that "Love never fails!" That is the foundation for our ministry...we simply love our families and our children just as Jesus loves them...
Please come and join us on this wonderful adventure! For more information, please call either the church at 330-457-2465 or call Kelli Harding at 330-482-4630. You can also e-mail me at mkhangeldrummer@att.net.
Thanks and God Bless~
Kelli Harding
East Fairfield United Methodist Church - Back to Home Page