Part 1 – The Hidden People

Mikal saw a person with special needs for the first time when she was 21 years old.

“She lives here? How come I’ve never seen her before?” she asked the host of her church group. They regularly met for worship and prayer at the home where the girl lived.

“She can’t take care of herself,” her mother explained. The teenager had Down Syndrome and had been kept in a room during all the gatherings.

“I never knew about people with disabilities because growing up in Africa, all their families were hiding them,” she recalls. It was twice as difficult for caregivers to maintain the hygiene and needs of people with disabilities in wartime Eritrea. Water supply and electricity were limited. They had no wheelchairs or diapers, and the girl –a 17-year old with the development of an 8-month old – had to be transported on the backs of family members.

How can this happen?! How can a human being be kept hidden? Mikal could not fathom the injustice of this. God put the girl on Mikal’s heart in a very strong way. She needs to be loved. She needs to be
touched, Mikal thought.

During one visit, Mikal reached out to touch the girl. The girl immediately recoiled. She had never been touched, “It was like an electric shock,” Mikal describes. She remembers the girl’s tiny feet (she had never walked). The girl had also been gaining weight because she was not mobile. Mikal came up with a diet to manage the girl’s weight and resolved to blend juice and visit the girl every afternoon after she came back from work. She would then pray and sing with her.

Within a year, Mikal noticed changes in her. She started learning how to pray. “She would pray just like a little girl. Any time we were going through a difficult time, we would pray.” Soon the girl was holding
her cup and her bread when they had tea together.

Miracles in Sweden

In 1991, during the war in Eritrea, Mikal fled to Sweden for a few months. While she was there, she realized she could take advantage of more resources while in Sweden to help the girl and her family back in Africa. “I noticed people with special needs were everywhere!” says Mikal, who went from agency to agency learning about how to take care of people with special needs and canvassing for extra resources and funds. “My heart went out to them. Some couldn’t see or hear and many had twisted limbs.” Over four months she was able to acquire a wheelchair, toilet chair, diapers, a walking aid and money to transport all the equipment back home to the family.

On the day she brought the equipment to the airport, God showed up for Mikal in a big way. She was about to pay $5K to ship everything. Suddenly, she noticed a whole bunch of brand new wheelchairs
being passed through for shipping. Mikal walked up to some of the airport staff and told them her situation. “This is second-hand equipment that I have gathered to help a poor girl in Africa,” she explained. She asked them if they might let her include her equipment in their cargo, free of charge. The staff agreed. “It was miracle!” says Mikal. “It was all by God’s grace – I didn’t even know what I was doing.”

Not long after, Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopian occupation, and Mikal returned home. With an extra $5K in hand, she immediately went to see the girls’ family.

“Her place was not wheelchair accessible,” recalls Mikal. She thought, what good is a wheelchair if she can’t use it? Her next mission began – she got permission from the government to do some cement construction around the family’s house. She was able to use the $5K she saved from avoiding transportation costs at the airport, combined with some additional funds that she canvassed from
church and at school. She constructed wheelchair accessible paths to the house and the washroom, along with a small bedroom area so the girl could easily go out and get some sunshine.

Now the girl could be pushed by her brother, and when she attended small group meetings, she had the supplies she needed to be clean, presentable and comfortable. “That changed her life,” recalls Mikal.

Mikal’s mission comes to Canada

A few years later, Mikal moved to Canada and her lifelong ministry to people with physical or cognitive challenges continued. Today she cares for seniors in her neighbourhood and volunteers for numerous
causes helping people who are lonely or challenged in some capacity.

Notably she leads a community group for adults with special needs through CSC’s Special Needs Ministry.

It’s a program where God continues to show up… and sometimes it happens in hidden, unexpected ways.