Empowering Disabled People in Belize to Live Their Lives to the Fullest

This former soccer player (left, seated in wheelchair) will now be able to pass on his love of soccer to the kids of his community, thanks to you! “With just that wheelchair, you’re able to get out and do things—it brings hope to your life,” says Access-Life Cofounder and Director Doug Goddard (right), “I want you to know you’re making a major impact on people’s lives. The things that we’re doing, that God is doing, is having a life-changing impact on them.”

In Belize, many people with disabilities struggle to get the wheelchairs, walkers, and other mobility aids they need to live a higher quality life. In rural areas like Roaring Creek, a lack of mobility aids can be the difference between being isolated inside your house and being able to enjoy a trip to the local market or simply to spend time with your friends—to make friends. Through the generous and highly skilled effort of the Access-Life team, you helped put these life-changing mobility aids in the possession of dozens of disabled people and their families! 

You know what it’s like to be stuck in bed, stuck in your house. We have all been there, whether due to sickness, injury, or another reason. Your body can start to feel lethargic and achy, you can start to feel stir-crazy, and it feels fantastic to finally get up and outside again. 

For a lot of people with disabilities that affect their mobility, especially in impoverished areas, it can be weeks and months before they get to go out and enjoy an activity. For parents of children with disabilities, it can mean needing to carry your child anywhere you hope to take them, even as your child grows to be heavier than you can carry. 

It’s not the quality of life any of us wants for ourselves or our loved ones, and it’s not the quality of life Cofounder and Director Doug Goddard of Access-Life and his team were willing to allow for disabled people in Belize. 

This past February, thanks in part to you, the Access-Life team delivered myriad mobility aids, medical supplies, Bibles, and dry foods to Roaring Creek, Belize. And by the grace and provision of God, they were able to assist everyone who came to them for help! 

The most common disabilities the Access-Life team witnesses in Belize are birth defects, amputations related to diabetes, and paralysis from gunshot wounds. However, one of the most memorable people Doug met this past trip was a 22- or 23-year-old man with muscular dystrophy. 

Doug says, “I had never seen anybody with muscular dystrophy in Belize because it’s pretty severe. I can’t imagine anyone would survive very long. He pretty much lives in isolation. He’s inside in his house all day long. But just seeing the determination on his face to continue persevering and pushing forward. And I see that with a lot of people there. They have that determination that God’s given them to move forward. It’s very humbling and very impactful.” 

Because of his loving family, this young man had made it into his 20s, but his family still wanted more out of life for him. They wanted to take him out every now and then. They wanted it to be easier for him to take in the whole sky above him, to be amongst grass and trees, to have the pleasure of being with other people. 

The expert Access-Life team fitted him with a wheelchair and gave him a shower chair and he was so excited. His mother joyfully shared that these mobility aids were going to make a huge difference for her son and their whole family, finally being able to take him out and help him bathe with greater ease. 

“A lot of people have strong faith,” says Doug, “and it’s good to see them express that and their thankfulness. They’ll say, ‘I’ve been praying for God to send someone to help me and here you are.’” 

Doug shares, “I always love seeing how God provides everything we need. Even though this year we had to build the last two chairs, that was probably one of the more meaningful moments, because we really had to come together as a team and pull everybody together and say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to figure out how we can make two wheelchairs because these guys can’t leave here without a wheelchair.’ It’s the body of Christ. Everybody has their gifts and talents. God worked through everybody to pull it together and make it happen.”

One of the final people Access-Life was able to help this trip was a 25-year-old man with paraplegia from a gunshot wound. He had a wheelchair, but it was “falling apart”—he was literally sitting on plastic. Before he became paralyzed from the waist down, he had been a soccer player. Now he had his heart set on teaching kids soccer. 

Swiftly, the Access-Life team scavenged their now extremely depleted supplies, building a wheelchair for him from the spare parts of other mobility aids. Doug says, “He was developing a bedsore, and I looked, and he was sitting on nothing. I told him, ‘Well, we’re going to make sure you’ve got a cushion for sure because I want to make sure you’re still alive when I come back next year and we can get you a better chair.’” The man was grateful and is looking forward to receiving a chair more suited for him next year!

Thank you for making it possible for disabled people in Belize, like the young man with muscular dystrophy and this young man with a spinal cord injury, to live with greater freedom and joy. Because of you, they’ll be able to do things they weren’t sure they would get to do, like get out of the house more frequently and teach kids soccer. Thank you for being the heart of our church, city, and world and spreading the hope of Jesus Christ.