We have started 2018 with another long-nurtured idea: Disability Awareness Sunday Service. It is thus named by the initiators of the tradition elsewhere in the world, but we are considering the option to name it Diversity Celebration in Latvia. The main topic will remain the same: to emphasise that people with various disabilities are also rightful members of society and God’s family; the long-term purpose is to ensure that people are not sorted in “healthy” and “ill”, but that we all accept ourselves and others in all the diversity created by God.
The first Disability Awareness or Diversity Celebration Service in the history of Latvia took place on January 14 at Āgenskalns Baptist Church. We are thankful to the church pastor Mr Mažis and the church for responsiveness and daring because when doing something for the first time you may never know what will work well and what will go wrong. Thank you to Wings for Wheels staff Baiba who became the initiator for implementation of this idea, being the member of Āgenskalns Baptist Church. In about three weeks we together planned and organised, achieving something that would require three months as per instructions. Maybe that is why publicity of the event suffered a little, and people with disability participating and serving at the service mostly came from the church, Wings for Wheels team, as well as volunteer helpers invited privately. However, the main thing is to begin: to place the small seed in the ground, so that God can grow it into something big and effective.
Now we surely now that the idea is working, and it is well worth it to implement it as an annual tradition of Latvian Christian churches.
More photos are here