Joni: Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a special interview today. One of the things that we love doing at Joni and Friends is to mentor and to provide educational opportunities for young people with disabilities and I have with me here today 29-year-old Jacob Bunch, a handsome guy, and he uses a wheelchair. His cerebral palsy doesn’t slow him down. This guy not only has his Bachelor’s degree, but he has one Master’s Degree in Non-Profit Management and Jacob you are going for your second Master’s. Tell us about that.
Jacob: I am. I came in contact with the Master's of Disabilities Program at California Baptist doing a search for a second graduate program that would meld my non-profit educational background and professional aspirations with my desire to focus it to disability—in specific disability policy. What I’m hoping to gain out of the program as a whole is to gain a Christian worldview on disability and kind of understand it to use my lived experience of 29 years, and understand God’s heart for suffering and God’s heart for disability and apply that to the disability policy arenas that I hope to one day be involved in, in terms of federal government. I know that there is only a handful of graduate programs even offered in terms of disability studies in the United States and California Baptist was one that kept repeating itself in my search so I prayed about it and I thought, “You know, I think this is the right step, let’s go ahead and make the leap and go into the second graduate program.” I started in the fall of 2011 and I’m kind of slowly progressing through. It has taught me quite a bit and one thing in terms of helping me to refine my Christian worldview about disability and God’s heart for suffering, in general. I’ve really come to understand two things: one is that Christ’s power rests on my weakness. That my identity is not in my cerebral palsy, but it is in Christ.
Joni: Well, I can’t sum up a better Christian worldview of disability than that: that Christ’s power rests on us and that our identity, or validation of who we are, doesn’t come from disability, but it comes through Jesus Christ. Jacob, thanks for underscoring that, and one more word: this is an online course, is it not?
Jacob: Yes, it is. It is all completely online. What I do like about the program is that it is not only done through a traditional online format; what they try to do is blend the classes with a live-streaming weekly lecture. I really do like that I can get the interaction with the instructors and feel like I’m a part of the CB family even though I’m doing it by distance.
Joni: Friend listening, if you would be interested in a Master’s in disability studies from Cal Baptist, you can go directly to cbu.edu or you can visit our website at joniandfriends.org. Our Christian Institute on Disability works with California Baptist University in promoting this special course of study. And Dr. Jeff McNair, who is one of the professors of this course, is serving with us on staff at Joni and Friends. Jacob thanks so much for giving the program at CBU a big “thumbs up”!
Jacob: You are welcome!
Joni: By the way, I would love to hear what you are praying about or a favorite Bible verse that you are memorizing. Tell me about it. Just go to my radio page today at joniandfirends.org. Or you can always write me at Joni and Friends, P.O. Box 3333, Agoura Hills, California 91376. If the Lord has answered some prayer of yours today, guess what? Stop right after we’re done here and tell Him “Thanks”!
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