Shauna Interview: Gospel Patron
JONI: Hi, I’m Joni and I’m so excited for you to hear from my friend Shauna Amick. Shauna is a wonderful co-worker here at Joni and Friends, and she is also my friend, and she’s got a remarkable story, and I would like for her to tell it to you right up front. Welcome Shauna.
SHAUNA: Thank you Joni.
JONI: And give us your story.
SHAUNA: I’ll jump right into it. I’m the mom of three kids. Our youngest child Sarah was born she was born with Down syndrome as well as a slew of other birth defects. And I knew early on I needed some support. So I ended up attending one of your respite programs, ‘Mom’s Morning Out’. And I loved it so much, that the very next day I called the Joni and Friends New England office and asked to volunteer. I started serving, going to Family Retreat, just being as involved as I could. And eventually you offered me the position of area director.
BOTH: for Joni and Friends New England.
JONI: Right.
SHAUNA: Yes ma’am
JONI: You did a fabulous job.
SHAUNA: Oh well.
JONI: In fact you did such a great job of being our area director, we invited you to move your whole family to Southern California and be our vice-president of development here at the home office in California. So glad you made that switch from New England to California. So, you see a direct connection between reaching families affected by disability and that word ‘development.’
SHAUNA: That’s why I was delighted to move across country, I saw it as an opportunity to help other people become patrons of the Gospel
JONI: What does that mean?
SHAUNA: Well a patron of the Gospel is someone who is going to invest in sharing the Gospel, spreading it, just doing everything we can to get that good news of Jesus Christ out to the people who need it most.
JONI: Well bingo! That’s exactly why Ken and I financially support and pray for Joni and Friend. Because we’re not just supporting this ministry, we want to see the Gospel reach the world’s neediest, and often most forgotten, often neglected, often overlooked. And that’s people with disabilities, isn’t it?
SHAUNA: That’s right, Joni. That’s why I love being a patron of the Gospel myself. And I just want to take this opportunity to invite all our listeners to have that same joy. The joy of sharing the Gospel with the world’s neediest; folks with disabilities.
JONI: Yep, because God uses your prayers, but also your financial gifts to push back the darkness and shine the light of Christ into the hearts of people with disabilities, and often they are overlooked, aren’t they?
SHAUNA: They sure are. These are marginalized people, just pushed into the corners of society. But what I love about Joni and Friends is we take that Gospel and we reach out to people affected by disabilities, bringing them closer and closer to the heart of Jesus.
JONI: You’ve been at Family Retreats, you’ve led them, tell us a quick story of how you’ve seen that impact.
SHAUNA: Perhaps the most powerful is in my own – where I saw our family living on what I call ‘the island of disability’ for many years, just feeling so isolated and lonely. And then it was as though God brought Psalm 68 into fruition. He puts the lonely in families, and he did that for our family, through Family Retreat.
JONI: Well you’re no longer on an island; you are connected to the main at Joni and Friends. And Shauna, I loved it when you said earlier that you invite our friends listening to become patrons of the Gospel. Tell us about this ministry and why you think it’s worthy of their investments.
SHAUNA: There is no better opportunity for investment than an eternal investment, Joni. And so I do hope our listeners would go to the joniandfriends.org website and click on that donate tab and make that investment themselves, because it’s not just bringing the Gospel to people today, it’s making an impact for all of eternity.
JONI: And I know you, Shauna, and you and your team you are careful and wise stewards of all the resources that God gives us through our listening friends. So as Shauna said, visit joniandfriends.org, click on the donate tab, for then you, too, will become a patron of the Gospel of Christ among people who need him most, people with disabilities. And that’s so important this time of year. Shauna, so glad that you’re here with us.
SHAUNA: Thank you for having me, Joni. It’s a joy.
© Joni and Friends
