I’ve known Charla for over six years as her pastor and friend. Charla has a heart of compassion and a joy-filled spirit which is contagious to anyone who meets her. She has been heavily involved in numerous ministries at the church like: children’s ministry, student ministry, Vacation Bible School, nursery, the pastoral search committee and women’s ministry. In the past two years Charla was given a desire to begin a new ministry which I had never been a part of as a pastor or in any church I had served. As she looked at our congregation, God opened her eyes to see He was entrusting us as a church with many individuals with special needs from children to young adults. Laying this on Charla’s heart, she began recruiting and training individuals in the church to meet the needs of those who might have been overlooked in other churches, and I’m happy to say the church responded incredibly. I believe the church responded the way it did because of Charla’s years of experience working with children with special needs within the local school district and now she was passing along her experience, knowledge and love to people in the church so they could join in this new incredible ministry. Because of her willingness to follow God’s lead, we now have teams of people from youth to adults working with special needs children in the nursery, during our Wednesday night Bible study time and young adults during the times we gather as a church. When Charla retired from the education field she shared with me the direction she believed God was leading her in not only starting a special needs ministry in our church but traveling to train others the joy this sort of ministry could be. I knew she would be successful because I had seen her heart, heard her knowledge of the subject, and saw her compassion not only for the adults she trained but the individuals she ministered to. I’m ashamed to say, as a pastor I never thought we would have a ministry like she helped build but it has not only been a blessing to the church but to numerous families who might have felt unwanted or overlooked.
