friendly autism church

[Guest guest]

I'm not sure if this post would be considered off topic or not, but I just wanted to share something for parents who have children with autism in the Austin area. For years, I would stay home and pray for my son and was never able to attend church because of my son's outbursts, tendency to run away, and knew that he would disrupt church services for other people. So I would stay home, tune into TBN and worshipped at home with my son, while everyone else in my household were able to attend church services. When my pastor found this out, he was not having any of it! He said that everyone, yes, including my severely autistic son who may disrupt his sermons, has a right to be in the house of God. No one should ever not be able to attend because of any disability! We are a small church that consists of only about 4 or 5 families. But I love it, because, we didn't feel like we got lost in the shuffle. pastor is not only our pastor, but our mentor, our friend...The minute he hears of being ill, or having a bad day...he would drop everything he had for that day, (he also has a full time job with 3 teenage kids and a wife to care for), and come pray for our son. I was curious as to how other churches in Austin dealt with families who had kids with autism, to my surprise, some of the biggest churches here didn't even have any kind of program for kids with disabilities, so that the parents could attend the sermons! I haven't been a christian all my life, but when I started to pray, go to church, and read my bible...I saw this change in me and my family that could only be explained as divine intervention. No longer did I wake up miserable, and wondered how will I possibly make it through yet another day of this life of autism. My pastor and his wife immediately started buying and reading books on autism, to see how they could better help us. And through their prayers for us, I have a renewed sense of hope. A second wind. They started to wonder if their were any other families that had gone though what I had gone through...And just wanted me to let the word out there, that if you would like to attend, though it is a small start up christian church...They will do everything in their power to make you and your child feel comfortable in his church. They divide the kids up by age during the sermons and have fun activities for the kids to do. And they said that they are willing to learn, make proper adjustments, anything you want, just let them know, and they will try to accomodate. I was really touched when it was Autism Sunday, 2 weeks ago, and the pastor made it a point to talk about how beautiful our kids were in his sermons...If any of you are interested, please email me offline, and I can give you more info!

Thanks,

Mache Villalobos