Comments on: Endangered…?

By: Kara

Kara — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:19:33 +0000

Hi Amanda,
I have been watching your videos for a couple of years now. I have used your, “In My Language” video many times in training volunteers who come to work at our camps for people with disabilities, Joni and Friends Family Retreats. Just over the past few weeks, I really feel as though the Lord has downloaded a book idea. I heard it said at one of our camps by a mother, “My daughter has Down Syndrome but her spirit does not.” Most people have never even considered this concept! Babies are being aborted simply because they do not fit the norm??? I am in the process of putting stories together based on the lives of our campers and the impact that they have made on the lives of others. Each and every one of us has been given the capacity for a relationship with God, therefore we all have spiritual gifts that can contribute to the lives of others if given the chance. The book is all based on the lives of our campers so that the proceeds can go back into camp, otherwise I would be asking to share your story! But I really feel that this will also lead into a website to share stories and give support to families touched by disability. I can’t even begin to tell you how your video has helped bring understanding to our volunteers. It has thrilled my heart to see people entering into the world of our kids with autism rather than forcing them into ours. My brother spent three hours in the pool every day with an 18 year old young man this summer pulling him around underwater so that he could, “swim in space” as he described it. My brother is a water polo coach and after this experience, he received a phone call from a mother asking if her autistic son could try out for the water polo team, his answer, “Of course, not only can he try out, he can be on the team!”
So, you are changing the world, Amanda and I thank you for your willingness to be vulnerable. If you think about it, pray for this book to make it into print, I am praying that it truly will save lives. Best wishes to you!

By: Ettina

Ettina — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:06:00 +0000

I suppose it’s especially worrying since regressive autism is the type most often vilified and sensationalized as a ‘tragedy’.
Hey, maybe if the mercury-autism folks can keep enough scientists busy trying to shut them up, they might actually do us a favor that way.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:46:45 +0000

Dear Amanda:

I’ve just linked over from one of your videos and have been reading your blog. I’ve taken a moment to note what I’m doing: my face is pushed close to the screen, my eyes are reading tenaciously, my pulse is quick, and I’m 22 minutes late for my 5 o’clock class.

Make that 23 minutes. I want to write much more but must leave soon to face a cantankerous and wonderful fossil of a professor.

I feel a common spirit with you and with every being living in this misunderstanding and odd society. I have always been not-exactly-normal: I was diagnosed with ADHD at 8, am gay, have transferred from college to college to college, am Quaker, am a boy who writes poems, etc. I feel often that I have been trained (by social protocol and parental expectation) not to do things that I desperately love and must do. I have been called “stubborn” and “odd” for this.

There is no eloquence of words sufficient to transcribe the kindling light of joy and love that rose up in my heart when I heard you.

Pax,

Ian

By: Don Lapre is da Man

Don Lapre is da Man — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 08:31:26 +0000

well!! This is the strangest kind of blog I have ever come across. I would like to know more about this topic so keep posting here otherwise send me newsletters in kingxyz@indiatimes.com
the topic you had mentioned is really new to me but what ever I got through it is life threatening. It shivers my nerves. There is always a good and a bad side of everything but this one particularly should be taken care by government and the practice of such thing should be licensed or if I better mean banned because in human being “survival of the toughest” doesn’t apply. Look at the example of Stefen Hawkins the so-called great scientist he to won’t be present today if that is the case.

Larisa
as Don Lapre is da Man
larisa@larisajoyreilly.com
http://www.larisajoyreilly.com