Lessons From The Disabled

  Camp Higher Ground is a camp for disabled people. These camps are specifically designed to help the disabled campers realize what they can do. They already know what they cannot do. The ages ranged from 21-65. Their brain injuries ranged from stroke to plane crash. These are remarkable people.
I really didn’t know what to expect starting out. I was assigned to a 35 year old man who needed a lot of assistance. I was really a bit nervous at first. I didn’t want to intrude his privacy or make him feel helpless. 

 He arrived, and all of the fears that I had subsided, let me explain why. Ndu (en-doo) was dropped off at camp by his remarkably joyful mother. He began carrying his under-responsive limbs across a field with two crutches. His mother made him walk and made him carry his things to the room. They sat down and she shares with me Ndu’s condition and what she expects of him. “Ndu takes care of himself, he won’t need much help. He makes his bed, showers himself and dresses himself,” she says. I look down at his metal leg braces and think to myself, “are you sure he can do this on his own”? His mom departed with a loving hug and left Ndu and I alone in the room. I welcomed him and asked him if there is anything that I can do for him. He says, “you can race me”, under a wheezy laugh. I began to laugh with him. The next bit of conversation consisted of him telling me incredibly funny jokes. 

 It took Ndu a while to open up to me. As the week passed by and he began to trust it, he started to share his story with me. Ndu told me about the accident that happened to him when he was nineteen. Ndu was a working young man; I believe that he worked for an auto repair type shop. One day he was walking home from work and a drunk driver ran into him. He received severe trauma to his brain. He was in a coma for almost one month. Ndu lost the life that he knew that afternoon. A new life began for him. He told me that God saved him that day. I was thinking, duh, your alive man! He meant this in another way though. He meant that God changed his life from that day on. He was destined to die never knowing God, but through the accident, he came to know God. 

Nearly 20 years after his accident, Ndu has made incredible improvement because of the healing hand of God. Ndu was in a wheelchair just over a year ago. He now can take care of himself and walk on his own. He may be slow, but he could care less. He knows that he is slow, he is simply overjoyed that he can walk. 

I think what changed in me was how I think of others and myself. I am more thankful then I ever have been for my health and ability to enjoy activity. I have also had my eyes opened to how incredible disabled people are. They have stories that will inspire you to live a life worth living. Their faith will shake you and make you really take a look at yourself, for you really are.