Book Preview: Faith Like My Father by John Fela

If you don’t know John Fela, I hope you’ll take the time to read this post and get to know him! He is a speaker, advocate, former teacher, and father to a son with autism. He also has a new book, Faith Like My Father, that explores his journey as a special needs dad in light of his faith. 

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am seeking to trademark the title of the "Swiss Army Knife of Disability Advocacy", meaning that I am involved with disability and special needs advocacy on a variety of levels. I am a parent to my 18-year-old son Chris, who has autism and is also nonverbal, and am married to my wife Faith, who is my son’s stepmom, and we live in the near west suburbs of Chicago. I am also a former elementary educator for almost 20 years, including special education. I transitioned into advocacy work on the side several years ago, and I now have a growing national platform through my personal work and former work with Joni and Friends. In my advocacy work, I write for a variety of disability organizations and platforms, and speak on topics including support and resources for parents and families—especially special needs dads. My heart for dads like me is a unique focus of my work, as I recognize the importance of helping dads along on their path.  My book,   Faith Like my Father, is a memoir of my journey as a special needs dad told through the lens of my Christian faith.

Tell us a little about the book!

The book is my story of raising my son with a disability, but beyond that, it is a story of the power of faith during life’s most challenging seasons. I not only reflect on the experience of my own son’s birth, medical and learning issues and diagnosis, but I also look back on the relationship I had with my own alcoholic father. My father never did much for me in terms of raising and guiding me, but he did give me the best life advice I could have gotten; although, I didn’t realize it until many years later. This story is also my personal testimony, as I describe the intense life events that led to me accepting Jesus, and that helped forge my path as a better husband and father, and as an advocate for others like me who were struggling. When my first marriage to my son's mom abruptly ended, and I had to navigate being a single parent for several years, my faith lifted me up in ways I never imagined. There is also a theme of forgiveness in the book as well—for my own father, for my ex wife, and for myself, reflecting on all of the difficult circumstances I had to endure, which I could now see as a blessing.

What made you decide to write the book?

I have always wanted to be a writer and eventually, an author. The nature of the book I wanted to write has definitely changed over the years, as when I was in college I wanted to write the next great beat poet novel; in my years as a teacher I wanted to write about education, but as a special needs parent and advocate, it became obvious. During COVID, I decided it was time to start the book project, and I reached out to my author friend Jolene Philo, whose daughter Anne is an editor, and did a personal workshop with me to get the structure of the book together. After five years of writing, I was finally ready to get it published, and Anne helped connect me with my publisher, Ballast Books. The timing of the book was also “divinely inspired,” as I didn’t realize until it was finished that God was orchestrating certain events in my life that had to happen for the story to be complete.

Who do you feel can benefit most from reading your book?

The journey of being a special needs parent is rife with challenges, on numerous levels. We face the uncertainty of our child’s future, concerns over their school placement and various therapy approaches, medical and health crises, a higher divorce rate when a disabled child is involved, and whether the child will ever be truly accepted in the world. In my case, I experienced all of these with my son, from him being born premature to navigating therapy and school decisions, a seizure disorder that resulted in brain surgery, eventually facing divorce and raising my son as a co-parent. My hope is that by telling this story, one of immense challenges and crises, I can also share the power that my Christian faith played in helping me to overcome every one of these, and also reflect on the advice that my own father gave me a child—advice that I completely ignored until I understood what it meant as an adult. This is a story that needs to be shared for every family dealing with special needs—whether people of faith or not—to help remind them that despite how bleak things may look, hope is just around the corner. This story is also for men and special needs dads specifically, as so many dads I connect with struggle with their purpose and value in their family’s life, just as I did throughout this story.

What was the most impactful or enjoyable chapter to write?

It’s hard for me to choose the most important or impactful chapter to me, as each one uniquely focuses on a specific part of my struggle and journey. But if I had to pick one that jumps out to me the most, it would be Chapter Four. I titled it “The Collapse,” as it details the lowest point of my life, when everything stopped working. My goal in this chapter was to be as transparent and brutally honest as possible with what I was feeling and experiencing, and because of how traumatic some of these moments were for me, I still have very visceral memories of them that come through.

What do you hope people take away from reading the book?

My hope is that anyone who reads this book will find a renewed hope for their lives. For the parent of a child with a disability, a story that they can resonate with in terms of the various issues they struggle with their child: medically, developmentally, school placement, and everything else. And specifically for the special needs dad, whose journey is somewhat unique from their spouse’s, but just as important and one that unfortunately does not get as much of a focus in terms of support. Also for the Christian who may be struggling with their faith, or may be at the end of their rope and doesn’t know if even God can save them. And even for the seeker, who may be struggling with any number of things, and have never considered Jesus as their one best option. For all of these people, this is a story that I hope can provide a template for how faith can work and move in even the most difficult of circumstances, and that despite all else, faith in God can heal, renew, and restore. 

Faith Like My Father is available now at Barnes & Noble and Ballast Books.