Corpus Christi church plant hosts annual retreat, meets medical needs for Ghanaian children with disabilities

James Roots, lead and worship pastor at Christ Life Church Corpus Christi, and Rochelle Roots, family and admin pastor at Christ Life Church Corpus Christi, began praying, “Lord, what is your purpose for our church here in our community?” upon launching the church in September 2023. 

Rochelle Roots said the church’s Children's Ministry and Missions Director, Christina Jaramillo’s,  heart for children with disabilities answered that prayer and “cast a long-term vision” for the church to be “open and welcoming and inclusive of families with children with disabilities.” 

Jaramillo has been making an annual trip to serve children with disabilities in Ghana since 2016 with Joni & Friends, an organization that “mobilizes the global church to evangelize, disciple and serve people living with disability.”

“I had met a doctor of physical therapy at our previous church, and he invited me to go on a medical mission because I'm also a nurse. So, my husband and I went… and we weren't exactly sure what to be prepared for, we just knew we were going on a medical mission,” explained Jaramillo. 

She said that while on the trip, she began to recognize that “the Lord lit a fire in my heart” for the people she was serving, and she had a desire to do more. 

“I knew that we couldn't come back home and never look back, so we continued going [to Ghana] through Joni & Friends, but the spark grew hotter and hotter for me… [I knew] the Lord was calling us to do more as far as [serving] more after the retreat, not just going for the retreat,” said Jaramillo. 

When Jaramillo and her family joined Christ Life Church, she was able to share her vision of serving Ghanaian families with James and Rochelle Roots, and “we were able to start working towards some of those visions,” which would become “The Visible Ministry.”

Jaramillo said the goal is to “shine the Lord's light onto [children with disabilities] and make them visible for everyone to see. That they're no longer shunned. They're no longer in hiding. They're no longer in darkness.” 

“[Ghanian children with disabilities] are kept away and kept out of society,” explained Jaramillo. “Hearing some of the stories that we've heard [of children with disabilities being neglected and hidden], the Lord gave me [a vision] of going into the communities, taking them out of their locked doors in the darkness, bringing them right in the middle of their villages and making them visible.” 

Sponsoring families to meet medical needs

Representing Christ Life Church’s Visible Ministry, Rochelle Roots made her first trip to Ghana in 2024, alongside Jaramillo, to serve with Joni & Friends at their retreat. June 1-12, 2025, they returned to Ghana, with a team of eight, for their second annual mission trip and to host their own 3-day family retreat for families with children with disabilities. With the theme “Living Water,” families had the opportunity to attend breakout sessions designed for parents, children with disabilities and their siblings. The seven families received care packages with food and toiletries, seed money, meals, hotel lodging, transportation to and from the retreat and on-site medical evaluations and care.

Providing on-site medical evaluations and care was something “the Lord put on Christina's heart.” Jaramillo realized that if the children received medical attention “early enough to where they can get physical therapy [or] some kind of surgery, [or] some medicine,” in some cases, their conditions could improve. 

“I'm a nurse, so I'm able to assess them and start their care from the time we meet them, and then we continue following up with the different medical professionals there in Ghana [for their care],” said Jaramillo. 

Considering this, Jaramillo extended the invitation to church members to donate items for the care packages, including “toiletries, medication and first aid supplies,” and made connections with medical supply companies in Corpus Christi, such as Russell Medical, which has donated “15 pediatric wheelchairs and several other [specific] items” based on the child’s needs.

Having contact with several hospital representatives and pastors in Ghana, Christ Life Church is able to arrive “more prepared” for the family retreat by already knowing the invited childrens’ diagnosis. 

Jaramillo said through her experience with the Joni & Friends family retreats, the Lord led her and her husband to begin sponsoring families they met at the retreats. 

“2020 is when my husband and I actually started sponsoring a child ourselves. Then, in 2022, is when we started bringing other people in to help sponsor some of the other children that we had met at the previous retreats,” said Jaramillo. 

Jaramillo brought that encouragement to Christ Life Church, and the Visible Ministry began sponsoring children on their first trip in 2024. 

“We [were] sponsor[ing] three families before this summer, and now we sponsor [six families and] seven children total,” said Rochelle Roots. “We were able to provide surgery for two children this year.”

Rochelle Roots shared that one of the sponsored children, Raymond, is “able to actually walk with crutches when he was told that he would never walk,” as a result of the medical care provided by the Visible Ministry. 

Partnering with Ghana missionary, church for continued care 

After the 3-day family retreat, the team spends “an additional day with our sponsored families.” 

“We do home visits with the sponsor families. We will bring them care packages, any items that we know they may have needed throughout the year and just spend some time with them in their home with them, praying over them, [to] continue to encourage them in the Lord and let them know that we're still here,” said Jaramillo. 

Jaramillo said she is “in contact with the families [who have a phone and connection] weekly through WhatsApp.” 

Christ Life Church also supports a missionary, Moses, whom they connected with through one of their partner churches, Covenant Family Community Church in Accra, Ghana. 

Jaramillo said Moses helps the Visible Ministry stay in contact and support these families as well by “visiting the families, going to doctors' appointments with them and being there, of course, with us when we have the retreats.” 

In October, Jaramillo hired a Ghanaian physical therapist, Esther, to join the Visible Ministry team and provide continued care for their sponsored children.

“We have to trust the Lord and in his discernment on who we’re choosing to work with the ministry… because it's not just about going and doing physical therapy. It's about encouraging the families. It's about praying for the families. It's about showing the love of Christ to them,” said Jaramillo. “[Esther] has a Christ-centered heart, she loves working with special needs children, and she's… been willing to go see [the families] weekly for us.”

Rochelle Roots said, “because the need is so great,” they are “looking for [more] people who have medical experience” to partner with them in their ministry. 

“[These families] don't have any additional [healthcare] aid over there. So, it's really life changing for the child and for the family, for them to get not just assessed and get some direction on what the need of their child is, but to get that support every month,” said Rochelle Roots. 

Church members now “in-tune and aware,” feel “their children are visible now”

Rochelle Roots said, “the Lord really put [Visible Ministry] on the hearts of our church family.” She said Christ Life Church members are “now internally in-tune and aware of children [with disabilities]” in their own church and community. 

“Our Ghana Visible Missions has changed our Christ Life Church family as a whole—expanding our vision locally for our church to be a safe, welcoming place where every child and every family belongs,” said James Roots. 

Jaramillo said church members who have children with disabilities have “stated how they feel their children are visible now after coming to Christ Life and being a part of this [Visible Ministry] movement that the Lord's doing here.”

“We would love to be able to eventually have a quarterly service, then a monthly service that is designed for families with children with disabilities,” said Rochelle Roots. “We're renting right now, but our vision is that the Lord is going to provide us a church home, and that we will be able to [hold those services] because that's a need in our community.” 

Jaramillo said being involved in supporting Ghanaian children with disabilities has not only impacted her, but has “completely changed [my family’s] lives.” 

“All of my kids are involved… and advocate for children with special needs in their schools. They will come home and tell me stories of how something happened with one of the [special needs] kids and how they stood up for them,” said Jaramillo. “So, it's really changed [their] lives, not just me personally, even though that's where the [passion] started.”

Rochelle Roots said that because Christ Life Church is a young church plant, they are in need of financial partners for their annual Ghana family retreats. She said Texas Baptists Church Starting has been a significant financial partner. 

“[This is a ground-up kind of ministry], so we're very grateful for [our] partnerships,” said Rochelle Roots.

To learn more about Christ Life Church’s Visible Ministry, visit christlifecorpus.com/ghana-visible-missions.