All About Dick

I wasn't sure who Dick Rutgers was when I climbed into his sweet high tech SUV with Brad and Lea Ann. I just knew this older American guy was heading in the same direction as the Chicken Bus and was a part of the Guatemalan team. He was wearing a pair of weathered jeans and a Hope Haven polo-shirt. I felt safe in the SUV with Dick driving because Brad was with us and he's everyone's big brother, right? [The mistake I made was that I forgot that Brad had gone through some hairy stuff in Iraq, so how he gauges danger is a little different than the rest of us. There were times when I wanted to let out a mighty squeal on the accessible bus, and in Dick's SUV.. and Brad would just sit up front and laugh.]

It wasn't long before Dick shared his story.. He came to Guatemala about 15 years or so ago on a mission to provide pediatric wheelchairs, just like the one we were on, and decided he wanted to stay in Guatemala. Every day he shares the love of Jesus in various ways-- he builds homes, he feeds the hungry, and he helps find Guatemalan children sponsors so that they can go to school and get an education. Every night he said he goes home to 15 hungry children. He's been a loving father to probably hundreds of children since he's been  in Guatemala. He blogs about his life journey and was featured in The Culture that Crawls  documentary.

Dick is like Brad in that he has years of experience seating children with the most complex disabilities into wheelchairs. There are many very special children, severely malnourished like little Juan, that have lived to see another day because of Dick's intervention. 




It was an honor to watch Dick provide instructions to the OT and PT students, talk to parents, hold children in his arms, and work on finding the best chair for each child during the last two seating clinics. He was incredibly patient, and even at the end of the day when you could tell he was exhausted, he was still smiling, and happy that the team had changed children's lives that day.

I'm not sure if it was the fun rainbow suspenders he wore or his lovely white beard but kids adored him. However, under all that cuddliness I could see there was a fighting spirit.  I see that spirit in many of the very best advocates -- we see something awful, you may or may not see us cry about it, but then we pray and channel all of our feelings into action, and you'd better help or move out of our way..

Dick is an amazing man. If you ever decide to go to Hope Haven to help go on seating clinics then I "hope" he's on the trip with you. You will learn from one of the best. Just don't let him tell you about his crazy encounters with bandits!! And if he says there's a short cut he knows then opt for the much longer route! :-)