Life with a physical disability is never easy. It can be somewhat less of a challenge or more of a challenge depending on where one lives. Living with a physical disability in Honduras most certainly is more of a challenge compared to many other places in the world.
While persons with disabilities are not discriminated against in Honduras they are marginalized. Mobility vehicles in public transportation are virtually nonexistent and there are very few in the private sector. It is not uncommon for a person with a physical disability to go months, or even years sometimes, without leaving their own property.
When they do get to leave the travel is extremely difficult and despite laws on the books establishing rights to accessibility there still remain very few buildings with adequate accessibility for people in wheelchairs. Often when a building has a ramp it appears to have been an afterthought rarely being long or wide enough to use safely. In the cities where there are sidewalks they too are not in a condition or of a design to facilitate getting around in a wheelchair. This is an even larger challenge in the mountainous regions where the roads aren’t even paved and sidewalks are nonexistent.
Due to a general lack of awareness and education about physical disabilities most people in Honduras just don’t know what to do with or how to handle someone who is physically disabled. The financial poverty that most families have makes it virtually impossible for them to provide the kind of equipment and attention that a disabled family member needs.
So what happens far more than we understood before is that persons with disabilities are relegated to staying at home, sometimes in a small poorly lit room, isolated and alone for extended periods of time, without the proper equipment suited to their physical disability. A consequence is that many times a disability becomes much worse than it should have been if a different level of care and understanding was available from the start. Not to mention the effects of the lack of sufficient mental, emotional and spiritual stimulation and interaction with others that we as humans need.
The feet in the picture above belong to an 11 year old boy named Bayron. As a result of an infection some 5 or 6 years ago he contracted Guillain-Barre Syndrome. They were able to prevent the paralysis from spreading above the knees so, with surgery and therapy and special supports, there is hope that he will not be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His family provided the best care they could for him but you can see from the picture that he has developed some other problems that could have been mostly avoided with better treatment and care options being available to them.
Right before we met Bayron we met a 6 month old boy named Yovin who suffered nerve damage during his birth. As a result he has very little use of his right arm. Within his first six months of life rigidity is already present and his hand is starting to curl under at the wrist. Through donations received our ministry was able to provide Yovin with visits to a pediatric orthopedic specialist and an MRI. Surgery is not an option for him but he will benefit greatly from physical therapy so we are providing him and his mom transportation to the therapy center. As you can imagine the situation for Yovin at 6 months old is very different than the situation for Bayron at 11 years old.
We’ve taken Bayron to the same specialist and gotten x-rays. The surgery that Bayron needs will be extensive, the recovery lengthy and difficult and the physical therapy much more intensive. In both of these cases most likely there will remain some lifelong physical disability. But by finding these two boys and getting them treatment and therapy sooner there is a very good possibility that the disability will be much less disabling for the rest of their lives.
We recently met three more children in Montaña Verde (a remote mountain community where we are building 14 homes for families who lost their homes in mudslides during the hurricanes last November) and we know of a 5 year old girl with some kind of disability preventing her from walking who lives about 30 minutes away from La Campa.
When we opened La Casa De Rubén our idea was that it would function like a Ronald McDonald House providing a place for families who live in far away communities to stay so that they could receive physical therapy. And it does function as originally planned. But God is showing us that He has so much more planned for FHD Missions Honduras and La Casa De Rubén.
Children like Bayron will never have a need for La Casa De Rubén if they can’t get the medical treatment, including surgery in some cases, so that they can then benefit from physical/occupational therapy. Without FHD Missions Honduras and La Casa De Rubén boys like Yovin starting life with a fairly minor disability will have to deal with a major disability later in life that didn’t have to be. We don’t have statistics to share with you about how many physically disabled people there are living in these mountains but God is steadily bringing more and more to our attention.
What’s next? We urgently need to finish the addition we have been building so that Bayron and his mom can come and stay at La Casa De Rubén as soon as he can have his surgery. There will be more visits with specialists, tests and exams, and probably surgery in some cases, for the other children on our waiting list. When the time comes for surgery, recovery and therapy we will then need more space, beds, furniture etc.
Whether we think or feel like we are ready God is bringing us more opportunities to demonstrate His love in a very practical way to these children and their families. Growing pains are good kinds of pains to have but they obviously bring their challenges too. But when God brings the challenge He brings another opportunity for us to strengthen our faith as we watch Him work it out.
FHD Missions Honduras is a 501c3 tax exempt nonprofit organization that runs on the prayers and financial generosity of others. If you would like more information please contact us, online donations can be made here, we need your help and appreciate you sharing about our mission to serve the physically disabled in the western mountains of Honduras. Thank you so much.