David Burchett’s Story
I am so grateful for the heart that my friend Pastor Yun Li has for children with disabilities. We experienced the anguish of having a child who was born with a very serious condition.
My wife, Joni, gave birth to our daughter in 1985. But our happiness dissolved into grief when we learned Katie had a terminal neural tube birth defect called anencephaly, which had prevented her brain from developing normally. Katie was not expected to live more than a few hours or days.
Our shock and grief were immediate because Katie obviously had no chance for a normal life. There would be no cure, no hope for even modest improvement.
But Kathryn (Katie) Alice Burchett confounded the doctors and lived. Joni loved and cared for Katie in a way I will always respect and never forget.
Katie found her place in our family’s routines. She could drink from a bottle. Katie responded to her mother’s touch and even grew a little. We took her on a camping trip with us, and she was a regular at the boy’s ballgames and events.
Sometimes people would make hurtful or mean remarks. A kid at school taunted our oldest son because his sister didn’t have a brain. (That was something that the classmate had no doubt heard at home, and it reminds me that we should always be cautious about what we say in front of our children.) Still, all things considered, our life with Katie went about as well as it could.
One Sunday morning before church, a friend called to tell us that Katie would no longer be allowed in the nursery. I understand that her condition was unsettling. But the hurt of not being involved in the conversation and the timing of the call was devastating.
We left that church. I still loved Jesus, but after that incident, I was ready to leave the church altogether. That might seem rather extreme but the thing many people can’t comprehend is how devastating it is for parents to have a child with limited, or in our case, no hope. You can trust God but the process to work through grief, anger, hopelessness, and loneliness is not easy. It takes continuous loving support and kindness.
Fortunately, Joni was more level headed, and she began to call churches near us. Church after church were either unwilling or, perhaps, unprepared to help us. As Joni neared the end of her phone list she connected with a pastor named Ray Pritchard. His heart for Katie saved us in that season. He told us Katie would be welcomed, and we would be lovingly cared for as a family.
Who knows when and even if our family would have returned to a local church had we been rejected again? For that act of Christ’s love I will always be grateful to him. Ray Pritchard and his associate pastor Andy McQuitty became dear friends and important mentors in my spiritual journey. God redeems the storms when we keep trusting.
Katie lived 14 months. A lot of our grief happened at her birth because we knew she had no hope for even the semblance of a normal life. I cannot imagine the pain of living with an ongoing situation for years and years.
That is why the church should be a place of acceptance. It’s why I love what Waterbrook Bible Fellowship and Pastor Yun are building for parents of children with disabilities. These parents need infinite love, patience, and grace. When the church shows the love of Christ to these parents and to their children, it makes a difference that most of us cannot begin to fathom.
Our church has adopted the theme to “Love One Another” this year. Jesus’ words about serving the least among us is one of the best ways to live that out.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40, NIV)