Welcome to this week's bonus interview on the Prayers of Rest podcast.

I'm Kendra Stanton, your co-host, and this week, Asherita is joined by her friend Amy

Troyer to talk about loving families of children with special needs.

Amy is the director of the special needs ministry at the Chapel Green campus in

Ohio and the author of It's More Ups than Downs. Amy and her husband Mark have been married

for 27 years and have two children, Abby and Ryan. After Ryan's birth in 2001 and the

diagnosis of Down syndrome, God created a passion in Amy to reach out,

love, and share with new parents the wonderful blessings that come with having a child with Down syndrome.

Amy shares her initial reaction to her son's diagnosis and how God guided her with loving kindness each day.

I hope you enjoy hearing her story

and are inspired to love the families of children with special needs in your community well.

All right. Let's dive right in. Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining me on the

Prays of Us podcast. And like I said, this season, we are preying through

tricky relationships. I'd love to hear, um, first of all, you're probably one of the first

people that I know personally and that I've got to have coffee with, um, who has a family

member with special needs. Um, and something that from my

experience with you and my interaction with you, it's not been a burden, but rather something

that you referred to in conversation with me as a joy and a blessing and something that has been an

avenue of learning more about God and getting to love others well. And you do this so well.

And that's why I'm so excited to have you here on the podcast. So to get us started, Amy,

would you share a little bit about your family?

Absolutely. Thank you for having me on the show.

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