Pat Fitzgerald

OK, this is Pat and I am talking to Beth Florea and we're going to start with me asking her what brought her to Grace.

Beth Florea

So my husband Micah grew up in a Lutheran family in Leavenworth and so I think for him it was really natural when we landed in Wenatchee in the winter of 2014 to be looking at a Lutheran Church, especially an ELCA Lutheran Church, to kind of put our feet down in and and become active members and we didn't really attend other churches. We didn't we didn't really shop around like I know a lot of people do when they go to a new community. We attended Grace and I think right away we felt really welcome.

Beth Florea

With my husband growing up in the Valley a lot of the members at Grace already knew my husband and his family. So there were already some natural connections there.

But beyond that, I think that it was really just the warmth of particular members that made me personally feel very, very welcome and gave me the confidence that I wanted Grace to be our our home church. And I reflect back on that was seven and a half years ago. I think Beth Smallbeck was probably instrumental in making us feel really welcome and the fact that we had a 3 year old son at the time who had special needs and with Beth's husband, having experience with kids with special needs. There was a really natural connection with Beth and Rich and so it really was the just the relationship of individual members. I think that made me feel like that was the right place to be.

Pat Fitzgerald

OK, what was your background, you said your husband was a Lutheran.

Beth Florea

Yeah. I grew up in a non-denominational evangelical church with my parents on the Olympic Peninsula. My parents still attend that church. It's been in existence for over 40 years now. But they were 2 of the the first 8 people to start that church so. That was my church experience. It was all of our friends. We went to the same church. It was a close community.

I think my experiences in college and then traveling some and then come and then definitely the experience of living in Latin America. Once Mike and I were married and being involved in full time Ministry Latin America. I came to the conclusion for myself that non-denominational evangelical was not the way that I wanted to practice my faith. And so when we lived in Costa Rica, we didn't attend a non-denominational evangelical church. A Presbyterian pastor led the church that we went to and I think having a background of Non- denominational evangelical, I've appreciated it for a lot of reasons because I think it allows me to understand the perspective of a lot of people, especially in our valley. A lot of the people that I meet and a lot of my friends, I understand their perspective because I grew up with that way of thinking. But for myself, the more life that I've lived—I know I'm not very old yet,I'll be 40 this summer—but I think the more experiences I have, that model just hasn't fit for me in my faith and the Lutheran Church I think for me is—I don't want to use our comfort 'cause it's not about comfort—but I think that it appeals to my intellect of like how I think of God and how I think of community and how I think of Jesus. But not only that, I think that it encourages the practice of faith and belief in Christ in a way that I feel good about and that it's not a passive experience of just beliefs. It's a really active experience of action. Like actually putting faith into action, and I didn't experience that as much in an evangelical non-denominational church. I mean, I attended quite a few churches in my childhood like going through college and different, just attending, different visiting different churches. But for me I think attending a Lutheran Church and specifically Grace. I think that I really appreciate the kind of that idea of like not not just talking the talk, but really walking the walk. And I see that as a fundamental difference—the way that people care for each other and even if their theology isn’t completely in line, there's this action piece that I really, really appeals to me.

Pat Fitzgerald

No, and that's the way I feel about it. Change yeah yeah.

Beth Florea

It's not just in my head, it's also what's in my head causes my heart to act on it. We're not looking for anything, no church experience is perfect. You know no church is perfect, but I think for me it's the way that I feel like Jesus has called me to live out my faith.

Pat Fitzgerald

And do you want to talk a little bit about what you were telling me earlier about the ministry that you planned for your new home.

Beth Florea

Yeah, so having a child with pretty severe disabilities and special needs has been a pretty isolating experience for us as a family, especially because he has pretty significant behaviors. And over the years as he's gotten older and his behaviors have become more challenging we've become more isolated. Even from our ability to interact with our church community, we have become pretty isolated and limited into how we can. We can engage, but I have never felt judgment for that and I think that that's also a fundamental difference from the way that I grew up is that I have always, I think, with true grace for our limitations of participation. And there's always this excitement when we're there and we're participating, but never guilt or judgment for why we're not there more often. And, I really appreciate that, because it makes me want to participate for the right reason, not out of just guilt and obligation.

Pat Fitzgerald

Yeah, right?

Beth Florea

But having having Logan I think has really opened up our eyes to a community of caregivers that also find themselves pretty isolated and really not lacking support. I mean I get feedback from a lot of families that either they don't go to church because it's too difficult or they're you know, their church doesn't understand their child and so they don't. They don't engage and participate, but I think for a lot of these families it's a really common experience to have very little support like their whole their network is very, very limited. You know, maybe they have one family member that helps them or a friend but I think it's made us realize that like this specific community of caregivers of children with special needs. You know it's like this micro-community within our community where they really have a lot of needs, emotional needs, physical needs, you know spiritual needs, mental needs. And so I did this last year. I had the opportunity to go on staff at a local nonprofit called The Brave Warrior Project and launch a center based respite program, which is something I had personally been kind of dreaming about for a couple of years because the model of having caregivers come into our home really hadn't worked well for us and from the my friends that I had spoken with it really hadn't worked well for them either, so in an attempt to kind of create a different model. We thought, what if we try center based respite where caregivers drop their children off and there's, you know, a group of kids there, so they have some socialization opportunities. And then for the caregivers, it's less intimidating 'cause it's not one-on-one, it's a group of kids and a group of caregivers, and there's there's a community that could develop, and there's accountability if behavior does happen. You know there's an extra, there's extra staff and volunteers there to help with that. There's just so many good things that we thought could come of it, so we launched that in August and started with eight kids and four sessions. And in July, we're going to have 19 sessions and we have about 45 kids with disabilities participating. So it is really I know I, like, got goosebumps so it is an incredible, incredible privilege to be able to coordinate that program. Because I recognize that these parents, and caregivers of these children are trusting us with their child and when they haven't, maybe done that with anyone else, and to create this model that really hasn't existed to our knowledge and so that that's one form of kind of ministry that I mean, I see that as ministry that is my ministry and I think caring for these families and their children is definitely become my ministry in the last year. And it is so meaningful and it's giving me purpose to the struggle of raising my own kid.

But also from that my husband and I started to kind of dream big and thought gosh what if we had almost like a retreat center where we could offer overnight respite to caregivers. Others have. In our home or in a mother-in-law apartment? Or, you know, some kind of on our property, but separate from our house. And so we started to kind of dream about that and talk about that. And I started praying about it and just knew if it wasn't just my desire, it would never come to be like if it was just my dream and if the motives weren't right, it would never happen. But God actually lead us to s particular house that has the capability of doing just that and so. We moved in a few weeks ago and I think this house is really set up pretty ideally to be able to accommodate that kind of ministry and that kind of need. And I already have several moms that are planning on using it, and they're excited to use it and I don't know how God is going to use this space, but that's what's so neat, is that both Micah and I are trying to be as kind of open-handed with it as possible and just say “OK, God. You brought us here. You guide us on how this space should be used.” Yeah and I don't have these real clear expectations or I don't have a plan on how it's going to be used. I really want to, just like lead how it's going to be used, but it is really exciting and I think for a family who's been isolated for a few years, I'm excited because it will allow my small family and my kids, especially my neurotypical child, to experience community in a way that I meant for years and I'm excited about that, 'cause I think it's going to give especially Austin a chance to meet a variety of people.

Pat Fitzgerald

And see what you're doing to serve too, yeah.

Beth Florea

Yeah, I'm really excited about that, yeah.