Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia through a Spiritual Lens

Abstract

weakness and interdependence. Kasonga embodied this as he traveled from one village to another on a stretcher, proclaiming Christ while held up by others. Disability, Deuel argues, was no impediment to Kasonga’s ministry effectiveness: God worked through, not despite his disability. The story of Paul Kasonga is the oldest in the volume, yet his story best captures a radical vision of disability in mission. Paul is weak in every sense of the term: he is disabled, he comes from a remote village under colonial rule, and he remains a cultural outsider in his denomination. Kasonga’s story stands apart from the volume’s other stories because his weakness is so much more pronounced. While the other stories are shaped by the experience of disability, they center on the perspectives of westerners who have greater choice, opportunity, and resources than those they serve. The contrast suggests that disability is not the only marker of weakness that matters in telling the story of disability in mission. While disability reduces the barrier between western missionaries and locals, it does not eradicate differences in perspective that stem from their social and material backgrounds. This is not to deny the contributors’ sacrifices or their valuable perspectives, but it raises some important questions when reading the volume: how would the stories in Disability in Mission be told differently if spoken by disabled missionaries from the global south? How would their readings of the Bible cohere or differ from the contributors? Where would their contextualization of the Gospel open divergent avenues for theological reflection on disability? These questions highlight the need to seek out and listen to the stories of disabled missionaries from the global south in learning the power of God in weakness. The benefit of the volume is that it challenges western-based missions to follow this path deeper into weakness. The volume is not a destination, but a signpost directing the way to a mission ethos that celebrates weakness in its manifold forms. Disability in Mission is an important text for mission agencies, missionaries, ministers, and lay leaders by contributing a crucial perspective that is often marginalized by western evangelicals in global missions.