On Sunday at Unity Church of Clearwater, physical therapist JC Devitt is often in the youth wing working with children ages 6-9 of whom she says, “they teach me every time.” On weekdays at St. Petersburg General Hospital, where she has served as Director of Rehabilitation since 2006, she is similarly blessed in working with a compatible team to provide therapy to admitted patients.
Invited by a good friend, JC first came to UCC about six years ago. At first, she said, “I cried every time, but it was a ‘healing’ cry.” Taking classes and becoming involved in spiritual education in the children’s ministry some two years later opened new doors, and “I feel like I’ve grown with them and learned how to speak more positively,” she says.
Born Jennifer Carol Devitt in Tennessee, and raised in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, she became JC at Misericordia University in northeast Pennsylvania, where she graduated with a Master of Science degree in Physical Therapy. There were so many Jennifers at that time and place that nicknames became the norm. Jennifer Devitt wanted a durable name, so she chose her own.
Fast forwarding to 2015, JC is looking forward to participating in her second mission trip with Joni and Friends International Disabilities Center from August 26-Sept. 2 in Romania, 46 miles from Bucharest, overlooking the picturesque town of Targoviste. Reacting to her invitation to this retreat, JC says, “As a physical therapist, I believe I have been granted a gift and now have been asked to share it.”
To raise funds for the cost of the trip, JC has created “tongue-in-cheek,” spiritually inspiring T-shirts, deep pink “Spiritual Goddess” and black “Spiritual Giant” available in the Bookstore along with information for online donations at WWW.joniandfriends.org/support. Donors can enter the last name Devitt or account number 4D5A71.
Asked how she became involved with an international ministry devoted to helping disabled children and families, JC said that she had once been the clinical instructor of a young man from Ghana named Owiredu. Reconnected 10 years later, he invited her to join his team, and last summer she embarked on her first mission. “I was scared to go to Ghana, but I went because I thought God wanted me to,” she says. There, as at UCC, she found the very musical church services with a strong emphasis on dance in praising God, very uplifting.
JC’s strong spiritual side dates back to her childhood. When she was very small, “she talked to God, brought God into the house,” her mother said. That accepting parent even helped her firstborn with caring for JC’s imaginary baby.
Despite innate belief, JC says, “so much of my spiritual journey has been based on fear and learning how to outgrow fear.” If she expected an epiphany, a lightning bolt experience in Ghana, it didn’t quite happen that way, but she has come to know that change happens inside. On that road to regaining her faith, JC says that Unity has played a very strong part of that evolvement.