Saturday, January 5, 2013

Future mandate revealed: Create start-up to employ persons with disabilities

In a dream, the plight of persons with disabilities in the Jamaican job market has been revealed to some extent to me. Based on the dream, these persons, especially those with physical disabilities have trouble getting employment. I even reflect on a case that I know of in person, where the person even has trouble getting inexpensive transportation to work. As I reflect on the condition that these persons must take transport to go to work in an age where they can work at home, I see that the plight is great and that I am called to take action to do something about it. For the LORD has placed in me the compassion to do so. In my dream, he visited me after I was made aware of the difficulties through two persons of disabilities who personally told me their own experiences and stories of being turned down job offers, which they perceive to be the result of their disabilities. After hearing their personal stories, I heard the LORD questioning me if I would be willing to create a company to employ these persons for him.

I now reflect on the dream and realize that I had planned after completing my Bachelors degree that I would start my own company and operate it on Biblical values as my witness to the nations. This dream resuscitates that inspiration. Starting  such a company to exclusively employ persons with disabilities is my act of justice and mercy. Persons with disabilities must work and not be dependent on handouts. For work is something that can be richly rewarding, enriching and fulfilling. Work can in one regard nourish the human spirit.

In the Garden of Eden, God himself found fulfillment in his work of creation. He admired his productivity and the works of his hand and declared that his work was good. He gave Adam and Eve the work of care taking of the garden as well as delegated to humanity the responsibility for managing the earth. When God sentenced  man after the original sin to toil and labour, work itself was not a curse. Rather, God just declared that no longer will our work just be fulfilling and meaningful. In addition, we will now need to work in order to survive and not just for pleasure. In addition, our work will no longer be made easy, but will become increasingly difficult.

You see, work was never meant to be a curse, but a blessing. The curse comes in the form that before, we already had everything we needed for our survival handed to us, and that the work of tending the garden was just a pleasurable task. But after sin, work becomes hard, difficult, and even raising children becomes difficult, instead of only pleasurable and almost effortless.

With this in mind, I believe strongly that persons with disabilities must be given the chance or opportunity to be gainfully and meaningfully employed. Through such employment, not only should they receive health insurance and other benefits, but also the opportunity to discover and apply their skills and talents to completing jobs and feel the satisfaction of doing work to the best of their ability. The disabled too must get the opportunity to feel empowered, enriched, self-actualized and that sense of having a place in the world and making a contribution to make it a better place. The disabled also need to meet or fulfill all of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

I know I need to work through the finer details, but so far, the company will be in the research and information production or publishing industry, where employees will have the opportunity to work at home, and use computing technology and the Web to get the work done. Now, by God's grace, I will have to contemplate the details and hopefully receive his greater wisdom and revelation for this mission or mandate.

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