Note: This blog is written by Shes Rivera, PT and Guatemla Director of TCI

What happens when you live in Guatemala and have a child with a disability? Where do you find the needed help when you live far away from any of the major cities with the doctors and therapists? (See picture above for some statistics on disability in Guatemala.) What is the impact of disability on you, your family, and those in your community? What do you do when disability becomes part of your life? 

Rosa, a mother in Guatemala, describes a lifestyle upheaval when Pedro was born. Pedro has a syndrome causing seizures and resulting in brain damage. Because of this Pedro, now twelve years old, cannot walk, talk, or eat without someone feeding him. He is sensitive to loud sounds, bright lights, and the touch of others.

Rosa divides her time taking care for Pedro, her younger daughter, and her husband. Because it can get too loud when people are around, Pedro screams, so she won’t invite others over. For the same reason, she’s not invited out to her family’s or her friend’s homes either. Rosa feels alone and isolated. 

She loved going to church with Pedro. He loved the quieter, a cappella worship and expressed his delight with the experience. Others, uncomfortable with this behavior, avoided sitting next to her. In time, she was asked to sit outside. A sense of shame filled Rosa’s heart. 

One day Rosa heard about a place providing physical therapy for children like Pedro. She didn’t know exactly what that meant but asked her husband to take them. They arrived at the physical therapy program at ASELSI, and she met Laura, one of their rehabilitation promoters, after being evaluated by their doctors and physical therapist. Laura isn’t a physical therapist, but someone from the community, like Rosa, who has learned some basic physic therapy techniques for children with disabilities. 

Rosa began taking Pedro once a week to ASELSI. Laura taught her different activities she could do with Pedro and ways she could more easily take care of him at home. She also taught Rosa how to care for herself. In time, Rosa made friends with the other moms and their children in the program. Going to ASELSI turned out to be therapeutic for Rosa as well. Now, she felt heard, accepted, and cared for. All because some local people took the time to learn how to provide basic physical therapy services for children with disabilities and find how God would work in and through them to love and heal others. Rosa saw God’s love in ways she had never before experienced.