Phil Rispin's blog

A primary goal of AT Catalyst’s is to bring wheelchair resources together with those that need them. Some facets of that goal include enabling affordable and appropriate wheelchair supplies, facilitating trainin

I guess I should thank my 6th-grade teacher Mr. Bishop for sending me to the back of the schoolroom for some altercation or another (he and I did not get along) because it was there that I discovered I couldn’t see. First, I thought it was a deliberate attempt by Mr.

March 7^th, 2019

By: Phil Rispin

Like many fathers, my dad had favorite short sayings that he used regularly when trying to guide or discipline his sons. 

By: Phil Rispin                                                                                                                                        Feb 25th, 2019

Drug users often describe the feeling they get from recreational drug use as a “rush”.  I had a rush this week when Karen forwarded me the note below. 

2018 was a big year for us.  We can look back on about a half a year’s work full time on the AT Catalyst project.  It started with taking a big leap, leaving our jobs at LeTourneau and selling our house.

By: Phil Rispin

For many of us, Christmas is a time of family and good food. There’s a story about a celebration meal in Luke 14. In verse 21 we read ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ Until Karen began working with disabled children in Kenya, I hadn't given much thought as to how difficult it might be to do this.

There is a saying that you may have heard, it goes “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer: “One bite at a time”. This helps to describe the huge need for safe and affordable healthcare that is absent for a very large proportion of the world’s population.

October 10, 2018

It’s been a little while since I was able to sit down and write about the new journey Karen and I are on. It’s been quite a summer with close to 5000 miles driven. We made two trips between Longview Texas and Didsbury Alberta Canada.

If Karen and I look back on our life together—

I think that we can say that we are prone to making rather large changes in a somewhat impulsive manner. For instance, there was the matter of getting engaged in the first place. About 40 years ago, we were in the middle of an argument, and Karen pointed out that my student visa would run out at the end of August. I would have to return to Canada, and I wouldn't see her anymore. There was about a five-minute silence in the conversation (which was noteworthy), and then to my surprise, I asked her to marry me.

When I was a kid—

Dad used to take us on rides in the car on Sunday afternoons or after Sunday supper in the evening.

If the hunting season was coming up, he would drive by all his favorite duck ponds to see how the ducks were doing. But most often, he would take us to see what he had been working on. Dad did many things to keep us all in food, clothing and housing. But most of the jobs he did were brick masonry and stone masonry. He could claim to be quite literally one of the men who built Canada, or more specifically, Edmonton, Alberta. So often, our Sunday evening drives would go by the job sites he was working on so he could enjoy the visual effects of his labor. When a job was ending and the work was done, Dad had a yard stick by which to measure the effects of his labor: it made him happy if we admired what he had done. For him that made a “good day.”

Being part of the AT Catalyst project gave me a “Good Day” yesterday, and I was surprised by how strong my reaction was. I want to share a note written to IDEAS by Luke McAuley, a therapist in Kenya. When asked about the value of the AT Catalyst Project, Luke said this: