(Photo courtesy of The King’s Table Ministries)
USA (MNN) — Many Christian organizations exist to assist children with special needs. But one group is showing God’s love to their caregivers as well.
The King’s Table Ministries is a Christian special needs organization that works to spread the message of Jesus to children with developmental and intellectual disabilities, as well as to their families. The organization’s goal is to show every special needs child they are just as valuable as everyone else, and to help their caregivers realize the same.
The King’s Table works to fill the different voids in the lives of special needs children by building relationships with them in a group home setting. Workers assist the children, their caregivers, and the group home staff. The organization also goes into local schools to work with the children and their families.
“Families play a huge part in their life, because they’re perpetual children, you could say,” says Sally Gallagher, the executive director and one of the founders of The King’s Table. “So a lot of families have a lot of needs. The divorce rate right now is 84% for couples that have special needs children, and that’s across the board whether you attend a faith-based church or not.”
With only one-tenth of 1% of families of special needs children attending a faith-based church, the need for God’s love is great.
“The main goal here is to bring them into a body of Christ, where not only do you serve them per se, but they also bring something very unique and very special of Christ. So it’s a two-way give.”
Mental disabilities extend through different ethnicities and are present all over the world. Gallagher says showing Christ’s love to these children opens doors to bring the Gospel to places Christians might otherwise not be welcome.
“No matter where you go, when you have families with special needs [children] and you’ve got places that you can’t get into, or [caregivers] are just more hardened towards Christianity, the one thing that will bring them to notice is, ‘Why do you love my child? Why do you care?’ Gallagher explains. “In a lot of countries, they’re shameful to have toward the outside world. A lot of families keep them shut in the house so that they [parents] can go to the market, because [store owners] have been known to not sell to families that have special needs kids.
“Every country, every community, every state in the whole entire world has special needs people. So the ability to take the Gospel anywhere in the world is just amazing.”
There are many ways you can help The King’s Table share the Gospel message through caring for mentally disabled children. Gallagher asks that you pray for the ministry of The King’s Table, as well as consider donating financially. She is responsible for raising her ministry’s fund, so help her by giving financially, no matter how small or large your gift may be.
“God blesses whatever people give,” Gallagher said.
