On Tuesday morning our team, Connie Chin, David and Ruth Larson was assigned to travel from Cebu to Manila to our village. Tuesday was reserved for travel with Wednesday and Thursday scheduled for wheelchair assembly, distribution, and support group training. But we were delayed a whole day. We finely arrived in Manila about 10:30 am on Wednesday. After a quick lunch, our CHE trainer, Kaloy, met us and accompanied us to the village of Tala. At the Tala Methodist Church, we met the pastor, two CHE trainers, Rebecca and Elma, and many CHE volunteers. Several students and some adults helped with the chair assembly. The students were at the church for another reason but instead spent the whole afternoon working hard with us. We completed the assembly in less time than expected.

After this, we were asked to go to another Methodist Church where 10 unassembled chairs were located. We were greeted by a few of the church’s elders. We demonstrated how to assemble the wheelchair to Kaloy and to a student living on church grounds, called the “temple keeper”. The church will assemble and distribute these 10 wheelchairs.

We were reminded that our plans are not God’s plans. As it turned out, our time was cut short but the goals of wheelchair assembly were completed.

On Thursday morning, 5/14/08, our team returned to the Tala Methodist Church for support group training and wheelchair distribution. The pastor, CHE trainers and CHE volunteers were there. The mobility impaired with their families were all sitting in a large circle waiting for us. Some of the families and disabled are attending this church and are accepted in this church and the Tala community. But they do not like to venture out of their village for fear of discrimination. The ages of the disabled ranged from 4 years to the elderly. The disabilities included amputations, cerebral palsy, stroke victims and muscular dystrophy. They all participated in a support group training, after which the disabled received their wheelchairs with great joy and appreciation. They went home with their new chairs, some being pushed by family members and others taking pedicabs with the chairs on the pedicab roofs.

One of the families that came, included a mother with her two disabled sons, Billy Ray, age 15, and his little brother, age 6, and a daughter, who is not effected by the disease. This mother has already buried her oldest son a few years ago. He died with complications of the same disability. Billy Ray has had to miss school frequently because he only attended when his mother was able to carry him to the school. The first thing he said after being seated in his new wheelchair was, “I will be at school every day next year”. Both brothers received wheelchairs.

The church provided lunch for our team. In the afternoon we accompanied the pastor and CHE workers to the homes of several wheelchair recipients.

One of the stops was at the home of an elderly woman with severe deformities of her feet and legs since birth. She was on the floor in the main room of the home with two grandchildren. The room was about 12’X12’ and there was possibly one more room. The cooking area was outside. There was no indoor plumbing. The family consists of 3 adults, including the disabled grandmother, and 8 children. The father earns his living operating a 3 wheel bicycle cab and his wife is a laundress. Their combined monthly income is less than 850 pesos, which according to the pastor is the minimum requirement to feed a family of 6. The father keeps a few roosters for cock fighting. The family eats one meal a day consisting of rice porage, “lugaw”, which is rice and water and occasionally something else mixed in. The ground around the home was wet and filthy. The poverty we saw here was extreme. We walked long distances on very narrow walkways from house to house, a seemingly endless maze of poverty and despair to our western eyes.

Several of the mobility impaired we met had not been able to leave their homes for long periods of time. Others relied completely on another person to carry them when leaving their homes.

We pray that a wheelchair can make difference for each recipient toward a more independent life and that they each may recognize that it was given because of the greatest gift we received - God’s Son.