A dream for Transitions

I need you to imagine something for me, just for a second.

Tomorrow on your way to work or school or coffee, an accident happens. There are millions of possibilities, and many results, but the one I’d like you to imagine is becoming dependent on a wheelchair.

What would you be thinking while you were in the hospital? How many days and nights would you wish things were different? How would you imagine your future?

I still can’t imagine what it would be like to lose the ability to walk, let alone imagine what it would be like in a country like Guatemala: where there exists no government assistance for people with disabilities, where there are no curb cuts, no disabled parking spots, and where people with disabilities are frequently assumed to be a result of bad blood.

This week a non-profit consultant from the US has been spending time with us. This afternoon, Alex, the Transitions Executive Director (who at the age of 14 was caught between gang gunfire and paralyzed), and I brought our consultant, PJ, to the future site of Transitions headquarters – a ½ acre plot of land complete with coffee pants, banana trees, and 2 dogs. In about 5 years, will hope this property will house a bigger and better Transitions Wheelchair Workshop, Prosthetics Clinic, space for Computer Training Center, and even for a basketball court.

Alex’s passion was quietly conveyed as we toured our newly purchased (thank you awesome donors from last weekend!) property. The consult, PJ, was overcome in imagining the possibility of our future center:

The future must seem bleak for someone newly injured, especially in Guatemala. But imagine if a place existed, a sanctuary for disability, if you will – a place that is not only completely wheelchair accessible, but a place that has been built by your fellow Guatemalans with disabilities. After some time, the future no longer seems so unknown, because you are surrounded by people that represent every step of your transition process. Here you are rehabilitated physically, mentally, emotionally, vocationally, maybe even spiritually. Here disability is not an end, it’s a beginning.

The strategic plan for our $1.4 million capital campaign is just beginning. Stay posted.