My name is Stephen Ferrante and I was born with Cerebral Palsy. When I was in the womb, the umbilical cord got wrapped around my neck. In the process of everything, I choked on fluid, and it filled my lungs.
I was born into this beautiful world through an emergency C-section. The first 12 days of my life, I had tubes everywhere, trying to suck the fluids out of my lungs. I was a fighter! Through the process my doctor diagnosed me with mild cerebral Palsy.
I didn’t know anything different until I started going to school. I would be pulled out of my regular classes to go to special classes. These classes taught me how to talk without drooling and how to walk without tripping over my own feet.
I did well in those classes yet when I would rejoin my regular classes, I realized how far behind I was. It was very challenging to learn simple concepts like math and writing. My hands shook when I would try to write. Why was my hands the only hand shaking in class, I thought. Why are these simple subjects that take my classmates minutes to finish, take me hours? Why am I so different, I wondered.
As the years went on, I learned to fit in the best that I knew how. It was in these years that I found my faith in Jesus Christ. The beautiful friendship that I found in having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ brought freedom to my heart full of pain.
Having minor cerebral palsy means that I can hide it well. It means that no one gets to see my tense body or my curled hands as I sleep. It also means that when you are in a class or on the field, your mind and body works differently.
What the people from the outside see is , Stephen you are so slow! Why do you move so slow, when you have so much work before you, they proclaimed! When you are slower mentally, and physically You become a target. A target for being bullied.
This is what is so beautiful about my relationship with Jesus. As each day passed and each memory was forged into my memory, it was my relationship with Jesus that brought healing to my broken heart. He became my best friend! He spoke straight into my heart words of healing! I fought for you inside the womb, He spoke! You are seen, He proclaimed!
No one asked me why I was slow. No one talked to me unless it was to laugh at. Hearing the voice of my Heavenly Father say that He sees me, changed my whole life!
That’s when it happened! I heard the voice of the Lord speak to me once again! You are called to Africa! You are to be a father to the fatherless and a voice to those who have no voice, echoed deep within my heart!
20 years later that word has become my reality! I never thought that I had what it took to travel and visit a land so far away from California. I didn’t think that this dream would become a reality. I had so much fear.
In 2022 I attended a missionary school in Zambia, Africa. I experienced many challenges. Just the fact that a man with cerebral palsy traveled 39 hours in airplanes, through many airports with such tense muscles, is a miracle.
Since 2022, I have traveled back and forth 3 times now. I support a local orphanage there and will be starting a ministry of my own, helping those in desperate need, find their voice.
I write all this to say that no one can take away your voice. The sound that you have to offer this world is unique and deeply needed for such a time as this!
