A kid’s primary job in life is to experience the world and learn through play. This holds true across culture, time, and even level of physical and cognitive ability. Jesus showed how He loved the children, and we want to do the same.
The kids we love and serve in Guatemala experience moderate to profound levels of disability. Many experience the world differently, aren’t able to walk on their own, and they’ve often come to us with childhoods stolen by abuse or neglect or just because they live in an inaccessible world.
It’s time to even the playing field. In some ways, literally.
The ministry we partner with, Hope for Home, fosters these children with significant special needs. It has recently acquired a 3 acre property and is building homes to house the kids safely and securely.
We want to come alongside and give these children a place to be kids—to experience and play in an environment that is theirs and to be able to explore a world that is completely accessible.
We have contracted a Guatemalan architect with decades of experience building play structures in the country, who knows how to contend with earthquakes, the monsoon rains of the rainy season, and the blaring sun at 6,000 foot elevation. She will help us build something beautiful, fun, functional, and structurally sound for years to come.
We dream of wheelchair accessible connected and elevated tower sections, with slides and netting and ladders for those that can interact with them. The pathways will be wide enough and strong enough so that a power wheelchair and attendant can navigate them. Adapted swings and sensory boards will be included for those who thrive with such stimulation.
Many of these children have never been on a play structure, have never swung on a swing, and have only ever watched kids play on them from their vantage point on the ground. Now, they too can be where they’ve always wanted to be — right in the middle of the fun.
Because of the special equipment and considerations required to make this playground accessible to all, we expect the cost to be approximately $115,000 USD. The construction should take about 20 weeks, including 14 weeks of pre-production and 6 weeks of installation. We have until the end of the year to find the funding so that we can have this accessible play structure built before the rainy season hits (otherwise the children will have to wait until the next dry season for construction to be completed).
Join us! Partner with us to fund this structure and help bring joy to these precious individuals!
Hi! We're the Scatliff family and we’ve been working in Guatemala for about a year and half now. We’re serving kids and adults with special needs, with a huge range of diagnoses including cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, autism, traumatic abuse, and many others. Most of the kids are struggling with a profound level of disability, and have trouble walking, feeding, or even communicating.
They live in loving homes, where a family of house parents has 10-15 kids, all placed with them through the Guatemalan foster system. There are so many myths and superstitions about kids with special needs here, that most have been abused and/or neglected all their lives before ending up with us. We interact mainly these days with about 3 houses of kids and one more of adults.
We serve through MissionGO (missiongo.org/scatliff) and partner with another organization, Hope for Home (hopeforhome.org), that runs the houses. Our initial intent was to provide logistics and support for the kids in terms of wheelchair maintenance, communication devices, and adapting the environment to their needs. But when we landed, the number one need every home expressed to us was that the kids needed friends. So we go play with them regularly, set up activities like water days, rocket launches, zoo trips, gardening, and anything else we can think of and have the resources to pull off.
And the biggest joy is that the whole family gets to be involved. I (Tom) do most of the technical work (although my older two boys help with that), Candice does a lot of the planning, and...we all get to play and enjoy the kids' company. Our kids consider many of these kids good friends.
Our favorite part of the week is the church service for the kids on Tuesday afternoons. It’s for the ministry kids -- it may be the only church service in Guatemala specifically for kids with disabilities. We do a short memory verse (in Spanish and Guatemalan sign language), a song to reinforce it, a time of prayer with the kids, and then some praise and worship music. The whole thing is about 30 minutes.
In short, ministry here is life-giving and joyful. Obviously lots of hard stuff. But we're really experiencing joy in the middle of that. The rest is in the newsletters:
candiceandtom.com/archive
And you can sign up for them here:
candiceandtom.com/jointheteam
Partner with us to build an accessible playground for our friends with disabilities!
Support Raised
Donate Now »| Name | Amount | Date | Comment |
| Private | $11,500.00 | May 18th, 2026 | With gratitude to God, we are honored to partner with the Scatliff family in the beautiful work He is doing through for these precious children in Guatemala. May this gift help create a playground filled with His joy, where every child is welcomed, valued, and able to experience the love of Christ in the midst of laughter and play. |
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