Not unwise to bring special needs girl on medical mission

Now Dal Basile knows for sure that it wasn’t foolhardiness to bring her special needs daughter on a medical mission to Guatemala.

Originally she worried that Michelle Villasenor, whose academic level is second grade, might could get lost in a crowd and never be found again. Dal has performed as a nurse on almost 30 medical missions, mostly to Africa, and taking Michelle was never even contemplated.

But Lighthouse Medical Missions leader Dr. Bob Hamilton prodded Dal to bring Michelle on this trip, fairly near, to Guatemala. Not too quickly, Dal acquiesced. Would the Santa Monica mom regret the decision forever?

On Tuesday any vestige of doubt about the wisdom of bringing Michelle was quashed.

That’s because Abigail Esteban appeared with heart palpitations provoked by anxiety over her own special needs daughter, a case of developmental delay fairly similar to Michelle’s.

“She broke down crying,” Dal said. “I told her I know what it’s like to have a special needs daughter, and I know that God can work in your daughter’s life. I told her, ‘God chose you because you’re a gifted person.’ I went and brought Michelle. And Michelle prayed for the woman. Michelle perked up. She relates to special needs people. She bonds.”

They prayed. Then Dal revealed some miracles: Doctors had predicted that Michelle wouldn’t talk until she was nine years old -- she started at age three. “When she was born, she was very weak, very flaccid, I couldn’t breastfeed or bottle-feed. I literally had to squirt milk in her mouth and pray that I wasn’t going to choke her.

“And then I said, ‘Look at where she is now.’”

Now, Michelle, 25, is in Guatemala.

She works as an assistant teacher at the Lighthouse Church School kindergarten. She calms the kids who are upset and reads to them. She always smiles and jokes with church people.

She loves life.

At Thursday’s clinic, some 200 patients were seen. As the medical care turbine spun, Michelle lingered around the free med dispensary where she handed out dolls, balls, lollipops and lip balms. She held doctor’s flashlights while nurses cleansed burn wounds. And she approached every baby and little child to hug.

“I love this trip,” Michelle glowed. “I held a lot of babies.”

Michelle has come a long ways – and Dal credits prayer and a loving church and school family for making the difference.

Everything Dal told Abigail -- and especially seeing Michelle functioning without any perceptible sign of developmental delay behavior – brought great consolation and peace to Abigail’s heart.

“Dal told me to keep on fighting for my daughter and to not give up,” said Abigail, her tears dried and with a smile on her face. “She helped me a lot because I came stressed out. Seeing Dal’s daughter, I hope that my own can progress like her.”

At 14, Abigail’s daughter is acutely developmentally delayed to the point that she can’t eat and weighs 34 pounds, Dal said. She’s been operated many times and can’t talk. Abigail’s 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter pitch in with the care.

“We both talked and we prayed and we cried. We cried a lot,” Dal said. “By the end of our talk, we were smiling and hugging each other and best friends.”

Dal and Abigail took pictures together and exchanged pictures on their phones of their special needs daughters.

So far, Lighthouse Medical Missions has seen 500 patients in two venues. Today is its last day. They’ve seen countless high blood and diabetes cases. They’ve seen chikungunya, the exotic new tropical fever accompanied by bone pain.

But as many significant cures they dispensed, they seemed to pale in comparison to Abigail. The medicine she got most of all was a powerful life-changer called hope.

“Just for that one particular woman, God had me bring my daughter to Guatemala,” Dal said. “That’s the way God is. He cared about that family so much that he had me drag Michelle down here. God used us to lift her up to know that God is going to use her in a mighty way. I told her to be patient because God is doing a work in her life.”

Pictured: Michelle (left) and Dal bookend Abigail with her 12-year-old who helps the special needs child, who didn’t come to clinic.