The following letter comes from Don and Dr. Bayer. They are in Bangalore, India, for the Wheelchair Consensus Conference:
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Greetings family and friends,

Today we worked with the R. K. Foundation, C.V. Vadavana Distribution Partner in Bangalore. They support about 110 schools for the poor, a clothes bank, a food bank, medical relief, educational relief, artificial limbs, surgeries, and of course mobility aids.  All of this was accomplished by two people with huge hearts for the poor. Their goal is to do good- just like us.

We met the most charming friends: three beautiful young ladies and three gentlemen. The young ladies faced a dark future, as each was gaining the critical mass that would soon prevent them from being carried.  Each attended school, but soon that would change, and their lives were closing on them like gray winter clouds. What they faced next was a life at home, then within home, then within a room, and then within a bed. But they get our wheels; and mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles - those who have loved these ladies this far - can now push them to school. Only God knows their future, and we must pray it will not be the bed.

Two of the gentlemen were polio victims in their 20’s, one a tailor and one a gardener.  The gardener lived in the nursery, as his family was beyond “crawling distance”. Once a week he would use part of his savings to take an auto-rickshaw home to see them. The tailor had one good leg, and he used it to stand at the cutting table as long as he could take the pain. The third gentleman has extreme curvature of the spine, compressing and distorting his muscles and nerves, rendering his legs useless. Dr. Mike’s good news to him is that his disease would get no worse, at least for now.

Friends, we felt you near us today. Together we changed these six lives, forever. I cannot explain this feeling.  How does that song go?  “A feeling that the world cannot explain.”   We cannot reverse the damage done by disease, accidents, or neglect; but we can give these six, the poorest of the poor, a life of hope. We can hope they know that they will be in your prayers tonight.

God bless,

Don and Mike