Guatemalan missionaries visit Iowa

A missionary couple who live in Guatemala were in Washington this past week visiting churches and sharing stories about their work. Chris and Donna Mooney have lived in Guatemala for 14 years and help those in their village with mobility problems by providing them with wheelchairs, crutches and canes.

The Mooneys live in a city called Chimaltenango, which has about 44,000 people and is 35 miles west of the capital, Guatemala City. Chris and Donna live in a house made of metal, just like that of their neighbors. They lived without electricity and indoor plumbing for the first two years of their mission work in the country.

?We live in a house made of the same material we make houses for them,? Chris said. ?We do not live behind block walls or barbed wire.?

The couple shared their experiences of living in Guatemala with local churches this past week. They spoke at Bethel Mennonite Church in the countryside between Washington and Wayland. They spoke at the New London Christian Church and met with pastors from Faith Baptist Church in Washington and with members of the Burlington Baptist Church.

Chris said, ?Several people who supported us in Guatemala were from these churches. It was a tremendous opportunity to share what we?ve done with them.?

Chris and Donna have been missionaries for 24 years in all, which includes 10 years of working at an orphanage in Mexico. They started repairing and giving away wheelchairs in 1994. Chris said he had no experience with wheelchairs but he felt a calling from the Lord to help people with mobility problems.

The Mooneys distributed 50 to 100 wheelchairs per year during the first few years of the program. The program has grown considerably since then and they now routinely give away 1,300 a year. Donna said one woman who just received a wheelchair came up to her and said the wheelchair was like ?an extra pair of arms.?

Chris said that the reason for his visit to Iowa is to thank the people who have helped him and his wife as well as to request more wheelchairs this year, since they have received fewer than they expected.

A number of local people have visited the Mooneys in Guatemala. John Mitchell of rural Crawfordsville has visited the country three times in just over a year. Mitchell heard about the Mooneys? missionary service, Bethel Mennonite International, a few years ago. Bethel Mennonite International needed money to build a house for a family in Guatemala, so John and his wife, Jean, agreed to donate the money for the house.

Guatemala occupies a special place in the Mitchells? heart because they adopted a girl, Isabella, from that country five years ago. The Mitchells started a non-profit foundation in 2009 called ?On His Path,? which manufactures and distributes clubfoot braces for developing countries. John produces clubfoot braces at his factory, M.D. Orthopaedics, in Wayland. He and his co-workers traveled to Guatemala last year and again this year to help the Mooneys with their mission work.

Chris said his mission work in Guatemala focuses on providing handicapped people with wheelchairs. After living in the city for many years and meeting so many people, the Mooneys realized just how many of the people?s needs went unfulfilled.

?We help people meet their medical needs and then we find out they?re not eating, or they don?t have clothes,? Chris said. ?Some of them don?t have shoes, which means they can?t go to school. Now we?re building 60 homes a year for people who don?t have adequate housing.?

Emily Ferguson is the executive director of On His Path and she went on a trip to Guatemala last year. She said the living conditions in Chimaltenango were shocking, but what was more shocking was the Guatemalans? attitude.

?Even though they have nothing, and are just surviving day to day, they are so happy because they have God in their lives,? she said.

The members of On His Path helped the Mooneys build homes. The homes were simple dwellings, 14 by 16 feet in area, with concrete floors and tin roofs.

?The houses had a sloped roof, two windows, a cooking stove and bunk beds, and to them, it was a mansion,? Ferguson said. ?It?s the most wonderful thing they?ve seen because they used to live in a makeshift shack with a dirt floor and a tarp roof.?

Chris said that school is a luxury for some children. Those who can?t afford school shoes and a school uniform have to work for a living. The Mooneys saw children drag rocks from the river and pound them, with a sledgehammer and no chisel, into gravel they could sell for construction.