In October a Vision Trip team traveled to Mexico and served alongside our distribution partner Operation Blessing. Over four days they assembled and distributed 60 wheelchairs in Queretaro and Celeya. What a gift to get a front row seat to see and hear the results of your generous support!
During one stop, the team met 13-year old Jose and his mom, Araceli. Jose was born with cognitive and physical disabilities due to TORCH Syndrome. While he has never been able to walk or attend school, Jose enjoys being outdoors and loves listening to music, which calms him when he gets anxious. As Jose grew older, Araceli realized she wouldn’t always be able to carry him, but she had no other means to move him. Increasingly she felt the strain of immobility shrinking their world.
Now with his own wheelchair, she sees a new future for the whole family. Araceli and her younger children can take Jose outside more easily and include him in visits to the park. He can safely and comfortably move in rhythm to the music he loves. The gift of mobility is widening their boundaries and bringing new opportunities for all of them.
There are countless children like Jose and parents like Araceli still hoping for transformation. Generous people like you enable us to provide mobility around the world, and we are so grateful for each one of you!
A Little Piece
Cirilo arrived at one of our distributions in Mexico this fall in his Sunday finest. Quiet and somber he waited with his daughter-in-law for his turn. He’d never had a wheelchair before, and beneath his stoic expression he was eager for the moment he could set down his worn cane and move without debilitating pain.
The last five years have been hard for Cirilo. His broken left knee never healed correctly, two toes on one foot were amputated, he lost vision in his left eye, complications from four years of dialysis have weakened his left arm, and hardest of all his wife died three years ago. Unable to work or care for himself, he’s been living with his daughter-in-law while his son works in Mexico City. It’s been a strain on all of them.
When a volunteer asked Cirilo if he had a nickname, he got choked up. His wife used to call him “Pedacito” or “little piece.” It started when she would call him for dinner, “Where’s my little piece of my heart?” Over the years he became her “Pedacito.” Waves of emotion washed over him as he talked about his wife.
Then—seated in his own GEN_2 wheelchair—Cirilo smiled and announced he would call his chair, “Pedacito.”