Lindsay Davis saw the young Peruvian man and knew
there was an instant connection.
"Hey, he has Down syndrome, just like me," Lindsay said before she went over and engaged with him, chatting and giving him a hug.
What Lindsay didn't know was the young man's mother had died 12 years before. His sister, speaking through a translator, said he hadn't spoken again since her death. He was almost entirely disengaged with the world around him.
But with Lindsay, he met someone who also had Down syndrome. He recognized the similarities between them. And for the first time in years, the young man started trying to speak.
"Lindsay was just being herself and going and saying hi," said Rebecca Holloway, director of Union's EDGE program. "To see the connection that they were making with one another was really, really sweet."
That was just one meaningful encounter on a 2025 summer mission trip that Lindsay and other students from Union's EDGE program took to Peru. Partnering with the organization Joni and Friends — founded by Joni Earickson Tada — and with students from the physical therapy program at Hardin-Simmons University, Union's EDGE students helped fit and deliver wheelchairs to people with physical disabilities.
While Union EDGE students are used to being served in various ways by the Union community, this trip to Peru gave them an opportunity to be the servants.
"Just because you have a disability doesn't mean that your life won't have purpose or that you won't be able to do things," Holloway said. "I think we got to see Union EDGE students being meaningfully included in a way that maybe they had never been before. They saw how their unique situations, their gifts and their talents uniquely qualified them for such a time as this."
Launched a decade ago, the EDGE program for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities encourages increased independent skills that lead to a better quality of life. EDGE is an acronym for employment training, daily living skills, godly focus and educational enrichment.
The Union contingent to Peru consisted of five Union EDGE students, five traditional undergraduates who serve as EDGE mentors, along with Holloway and her husband Trenton, who serves as assistant director of student government and Greek life at Union.
Union personnel helped measure patients and select wheelchairs that fit them. They made cushions, armrests and footrests to customize the wheelchairs to the needs of the individuals. Most of the people they served in Peru had cerebral palsy, had suffered a stroke or had been in an accident causing a spinal cord injury.
"It was incredible to watch our students connect with the individuals we were serving, because they had varied levels of disability," said Anna Fultz, assistant director for student support in the EDGE program. "Our students are used to being the ones with the disability and getting the extra support. Seeing other people who have a lot more struggle in their lives than they do shifted their perspective."
For EDGE student Ellie Brogdon, the trip provided an opportunity to "get out of my comfort zone," she said.
Brogdon performed a variety of tasks during the week. She learned how to help transfer people from one wheelchair to another. She prayed for those the team was serving. She retrieved wheelchairs or cushions when needed.
She remembers one mother in particular whose son was paralyzed. The mother regularly had to carry her son up multiple flights of stairs to get to their home.
That level of sacrifice opened her eyes
to the kinds of sacrifices her parents had
made for her, to help her succeed, she
said. And when the boy got his wheelchair,
the mom began crying.
"That little thing just brought a glimpse of hope," Brogdon said. "This is a whole new opportunity to do new things and a little weight lifted for them."
Brogdon has an intellectual disability that she struggled with for years during school. She was behind her peers academically. No matter how hard she worked, no matter how many hours she spent at the table trying to focus on her studies, things never clicked.
Her senior year, she heard all her friends talking about where they were going to college. She felt excluded.
"It was really hard to see the goodness in it," she said. "All I saw was the negativity. I'm never going to go to college. I'm never going to be able to get the career that I wanted."
But then she heard about Union's EDGE program through her brother Lucas, who had attended Union. She applied and enrolled and found it to be the perfect fit for her.
"It's helped me grow and learn to accept myself," she said. "We're uniquely made, and there's no mistakes."
Chaselyn Dabbs, an exercise science major from Linden, Tennessee, graduated in May 2026 and served as an EDGE mentor during her time at Union. The trip to Peru gave her a glimpse of how she could use physical therapy in a missions setting.
"We have a view of the special needs population and those with disabilities, but to actually go to a different country to see how it affects them differently — with fewer resources — touched me on a lot of different levels," she said. "The Lord sees them, too, and he cares for them. It might not look exactly the way it does here, but he's still providing for them."
Dabbs said she was encouraged to see
how Union's EDGE students responded.
For many of them, it was their first missions
experience. For some, it was their
first time out of the country. It proved to
be a huge step in their faith and in their
personal development, she said.
"It's important to remember that no matter your disability or your special needs, the Lord can use you in that," she said.
At the end of their trip, the EDGE students hiked to Machu Picchu — a high altitude, physically demanding hike that challenged the entire team. The students all encouraged one another and helped each other to complete the strenuous trek.
"It was one of the toughest things I have ever done," Brogdon said. "It's so high. You're fighting the altitude. You're pushing yourself. And I just loved how encouraging people were to each other on the team."
"It was a perfect culmination of the trip and such a picture of how we do these experiences," Holloway said. "We do these things hand-in-hand with one another. We couldn't do it on our own. We do it together, and we do it for one another and for the glory of God, ultimately."
Holloway teaches her EDGE students that God has created them a specific way for a plan and a purpose. They are part of the kingdom of God, and they have important roles to play. The entire experience in Peru was full-circle moment where EDGE students could see how God could use them to serve and bless others.
Whether it was Brogdon spending 45 minutes throwing a ball to a boy who had almost no range of motion or another EDGE student, Hope Hixson, kneeling beside a blind boy and singing "Jesus Loves Me" to him, the missions experience gave students an opportunity to use their God-given gifts.
"Being missionally minded is not exclusive to being in Peru, but it's the way that we want to live our lives," Holloway said. "We have a gospel calling. We want to be making a kingdom impact, and our students with intellectual and developmental disabilities are not excluded from that. They absolutely have a meaningful role to play in the body of Christ."
