Maricel Apatan has hands. You just can't see them.

This thought pops into my head when I glimpse Apatan walking up the incline to the front of the church where she goes to mass every Sunday. I wanted to meet Apatan in church because I learned that she has a very deep faith. This and her parent's constant love and support have carried her through the last decade.

As she walks alongside her sister, the first gesture I notice is her reaching her arm out to put the stump of her left hand into her sister's hand. There's an ethereal quality about her. She moves with dignity and confidence, not at all conscious of the fact that where her hands should have been were two stumps of smooth, pale skin.

Maricel Apatan uses sharp knives from her own set of professional blades to fillet a 'Lapu lapu' in the kitchen of the five-star hotel in Manila where she serves as cook. Simone Orendain/World Vision Update

Apatan nods a hello at the entrance and immediately rubs the stump of her right arm on my forearm, in a handless handshake. Her smile lights up the crowded church entrance and she bends down and pats a tiny boy's head so he could step aside for her and her sister to pass. For a person with no hands she's very tactile. We're inside a space where she clearly has found a sanctuary. Kneeling and deep in prayer she closes her eyes, putting the stumps of her arms together — if she had hands they would be clasped tightly together. She says prayer and her faith in God have kept her going in the past 10 years since she was attacked with machetes and left for dead near her home in a town in the Philippines' rural south. That's how she lost her hands.

In church, Apatan also sings in prayer. She's a soprano and feels bad that she can no longer reach high notes because the cuts to her neck were so deep they affected her vocal cords.

In the Shangri-la pastry kitchen, Apatan has a disabled colleague named Jasper who is hearing impaired. The Hong Kong-based luxury hotel hired them both through its program, which offers internships and work to people with disabilities.

Apatan does a couple of demos during my visit to Shangri-la's kitchens. She covers a cheesecake with sliced strawberry, white chocolate and blueberry icing to form a pretty flower pattern. She fillets a fish quickly, breads and fries it and creates a sweet and sour, carrot and bell-pepper garnished dish. I see the smile on her face as she moves briskly around the kitchen, her stumps for hands cutting fish, vegetables, fruit with a sharp knife tucked tightly at her side.

Her various trainers have said that she can do a lot but is limited by her lack of hands. Still, she's a good learner and her determination to succeed will take her far in the culinary world.

Apatan has ambitions of working as a chef overseas where the pay is better and she would possibly be able to afford movable prosthetics. These would be a far cry from the cosmetic hands she was offered that she says "look like mannequin hands." What in the world would she do with those?! She dreams of owning her own restaurant. And all this, added to every success that she has already achieved is being used to further her life's goal: to take her family out of poverty.

These are very high ambitions. Already it's quite remarkable that this amputee with no hands is creating dishes in a five-star hotel. But I know for Apatan this isn't enough. It's only the beginning of what she expects to be a long career in cooking.

Do you know someone with a disability who has used his or her shortcoming to make a better life?

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