wfn.org | Looking beyond disabilities

[BethAH <BethAH@mbm.org>]

May 2, 2001
Beth Hawn
Mennonite Board of Missions
(219) 294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>
May 2, 2001

Looking beyond disabilities: MVSer sees character in students

Grant Rissler is serving through Mennonite Voluntary Service as a
writer and photographer.  After spending a year as intern at the
Mennonite Central Committee United Nations office in Manhattan,
he is traveling for five months by bus to 20 other MVS and
Short-Term Mission sites, gathering the stories and experiences
of other volunteers and communities.  A weekly column by Grant
can be found on the web at www.MBM.org.

FRESNO, Calif. (CHM/MBM) – Dealing with cerebral palsy will teach
you many things – about others and about yourself.

That’s what Mennonite Voluntary Service worker Julia Junne has
discovered in her nine months of working here as a volunteer at
United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of Central California.

“I remember when I first got here, this was the most overwhelming
experience,” Junne says as we sit in the lunchroom of the UCP
Arts and Technology Center.  There are more than 50 students
eating lunch, some with assistance from the staff.  Some of the
clients, unable to express themselves verbally because of their
disability, communicate with guttural shouts and cries.

“There are all those noises, their food, them.  When someone is
in a bad mood, they’re going to express it much more strongly
than you or I would.  But you get used to it.”  Junne is
patiently spoon-feeding meatloaf, mashed potatoes and broccoli to
a man who can’t use his arms or legs.

Cerebral palsy is a disability caused by damage to the brain that
creates varying degrees of paralysis or difficulty with motor
skills, often making speech difficult.  Junne, a native of
Germany, serves at UCP as an art instructor, working with
students on arts and crafts.  For some students, it is hoped that
the craft work and other interactive activities at the center
will assist them in becoming more independent.  For others who
are more severely impaired, the purpose is to provide fulfilling
activities to brighten the client’s day.

The interactions, Junne says, are often difficult, but filled
with opportunities for growing relationships and experiences.

“The things I experience every day with the students shows that I
make a difference for them,” she says.  “The only way for me to
help them is to show them how they are really loved by
everybody.  Each day when I go there, I try to have an
interaction with a single person so that I know what that person
feels and so I can help motivate that person.”

“One interesting experience for me is to get the chance to see
how the students see the world, because it’s very different.
When the students draw a Christmas tree, it may not look like a
Christmas tree, but I know [it is] because they tell me.  It’s a
way to see a different world.”

“Once I let them draw portraits of each other or me and they were
really great.  That was also about how they see each other and
themselves in their situation.  I think it is really inspiring.”

Junne tells the story of one student named David* who was injured
in a car crash when he was 18.  (Perhaps half of her students,
Junne says, are like David and can remember what it was like
before they were injured.)  After spending nine months in a coma,
David regained consciousness, but couldn’t walk or speak.  He set
a goal to relearn how to talk, a goal he succeeded in meeting.
Now, he is focusing on learning how to walk again.

“When I was hiking [last week], I really had to think about him,”
Junne says.  “He totally knows what situation he’s in and he can
still deal with that better than everyone else.”

The day-to-day interactions have changed the way she perceives
people with cerebral palsy and other disabilities, Junne says.

“Before, when I met someone in town with a disability, I didn’t
have any idea how to approach them.  [Now I] forget about that.
Rather, [I] see the character of the person moving in the
foreground.  You don’t have to know what the symptoms are because
you know that person as a person.”

*Name has been changed
Mennonite Voluntary Service is a joint program of the Commission
on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church and
Mennonite Board of Missions of the Mennonite Church.
* * *
Grant E. Rissler       PHOTOS AVAILABLE