Mission to Guatemala
from Darcy King
A team of students, faculty and partners from Belmont University’s School of Occupational Therapy and School of Physical Therapy are ministering in Guatemala during Belmont’s spring break, the seventh year a team has traveled there.
In order to beat rush hour traffic our group got an early start with breakfast at 7:00a.m. Even though we thought we had an early start, we know that the Shalom Foundation staff were hard at work long before we got out of bed. Today was the first day we experienced the weather we had been anticipating. The sun was out in full force and many of us got a little more than our fair share. Our first destination for the day was a children’s rehab hospital. The hospital staff gave us a tour of the facility and then we broke up into our respective professions to participate in therapy sessions. We had the unique opportunity to collaborate with the OTs and PTs at this rehab center in order to exchange ideas and share information. This was a humbling learning experience for clinicians and students alike. During the OT sessions we observed how they conducted group therapy sessions, learned about how they taught families to make piñatas to be sold as a source of income, and had the opportunity to work one on one with many of the children.
