Two thousand years ago, the Bible records the story of four able-bodied men and their disabled friend. Eager for their friend to see Jesus, the talk of the town in Capernaum (kuhper- ney-uhm), the men carried him on a mat to a home where Jesus was teaching. When the group of friends arrived, crowds already there prevented the men from getting their
friend anywhere close to Jesus. Undaunted, they c
arried him to the roof where they cut a hole through layers of straw and hardened mud, and lowered the man to Jesus’ feet. Moved by their bold faith, Jesus restored the man with a disability to wholeness and health. The lives of all five men — and the crowd who witnessed the event — were never the same. We call Young Life’s ministry for teens and young adults with disabilities, “Capernaum,” because we don’t think that physical or mental limitations
should keep an adolescent from the presence of the One who promises fullness of life. Like the friends in the story, we move through barriers
including the isolation and marginalization that can accompany having special needs, believing that the lives of kids with disabilities, as well as
their able-bodied friends, are transformed by the shared experience of Young Life. Young Life’s first outreach to kids with disabilities, The Capernaum Project, was founded by Nick Palermo in 1986 in San Jose, Calif. Since then, Young Life’s focus on teens and young adults with disabilities, called Capernaum, has spread throughout the United States and abroad. Capernaum is established and supported locally by caring people with a heart for adolescents with disabilities. Staff and trained volunteer leaders
help these friends discover and enjoy acceptance, adventure and fun in the mutual friendships they develop and at weekly club meetings, special events and camping trips.
