Joni & Friends

Beacon Hill visited Joni & Friends in Agoura Hills on the way back from Our Lady of Angels Cathedral. Children and adults were profoundly impacted by the ministry's call to care for those in need; ironically, helping we who are "well" become active and socially outward.
Joni generously welcomed the students into her office, demonstrating her voice recognition software which enables her to write.
Touring the facility means showcasing specific individuals with disabilities. It's worth noting how groups move from being invisible - like minorities in the 1950s - to mainstream recognition. Conversely, orthodox Christians today feel invisible among our culture's powerbrokers, such as the university, media circles.

Refurbished wheelchairs are delivered internationally, for which the children collected a donation.

The center of the building is the "floating" chapel, where we sang the doxology after reading the words from Amos, "Let justice roll down like waters..." inscribed in the fountain below.

The design is lifted from Maya Lin's realization of the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, which uses water as a temporal element, illustrating the timeline of the civil rights movement. She is one of my favorite 20th century artists, after her award-winning design - at 22 years old! - of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC.

We ended the session, making "gospel bracelets" which will be attached to every donated wheelchair, then listened to Joni give her testimony, raise disability awareness, as well as offer practical advice to the children: "Always swim with a buddy!"