Thanks, Hope Haven for sharing your innovations with us

One day not too long ago, I received a call to come to the house. . .a team was there from Hope Haven, International, and had brought the guys a surprise.

A few weeks earlier, I had been at a workshop at Hope Haven's workshop in Santo Domingo Xenaco, and Mark Richard had shown me a new design in wheelchairs, the Beeline, and a harness to a bicycle to enable an able-bodied rider to tow along a friend in a wheelchair.  Well, a team from Illinois and Mark decided that it was time for the guys at Casa de Esperanza to have one!

Since Fidel and Osmi have power chairs, and Moy has a chair with large front wheels that enable him to pass over the cobblestones (often he "catches a tow" by hooking his feet under Fidel's or Osmi's power chair and letting them pull him down the street), Roberto is the major beneficiary of the chair.

I had been problem solving for quite a while how we could get a chair, or perhaps and electric scooter, which would enable Roberto to have more access to the community, now that his health has improved.  Well, this is our answer.  The chair is stable enough that he can self-propel over the cobble-stone street, and, when going longer distances, one of the workers or one of his friends can tow him with the bike.

Jonathan, the youth pastor from Roberto's church often comes and takes him for a ride,
even going as far as into Antigua!

This has opened up a whole new part of the world to Roberto.

We are so grateful to Mark Richard, Hope Haven Guatemala, the Illinois team, and everyone who has worked to design this gift of mobility and freedom to our house.