Joni: I really respect the physical and occupational therapists we work with… and we work with a lot of them, especially in our Wheels for the World outreach. Like my friend Care Tuk who has been on a ton of Wheels outreach trips! Welcome, Care, and to start off, give us your best Wheels for the World story…
Care: Joni, it’s so hard to come up with one best one because every Wheels trip is the best Wheels, but my best story comes from Albania when we went over and bumping away over all those Biblical roads where Paul traveled. We had a chance after a long, long day of distributing wheelchairs and we were teaching and we had wonderful people who were working with the children all over. At the end of the day I had a chance to meet one-on-one with a woman – it was mom-to-mom – we both had adult children with cerebral palsy and we didn’t need an interrupter because love knows no barriers. And because of that she in her Muslim garb, tears streaming down her face, tears streaming down my face, we connected. Later that day somebody asked us, ‘Why is Wheels for the World even here?’ It’s so close to when the Kosovo war was here. And we answered ‘Because the need was so great.’ Not just the need for the wheelchairs, but the need for the Gospel.
Joni: We rarely think of Muslim women in their burkas having children with cerebral palsy, but these moms are like any mom anywhere around the world, right?
Care: Their hearts are breaking and especially this woman who had never been outside and now would have a chance to go to market to be there, but as I sat her in my lap as an occupational therapist and as they were working on her wheelchair we were just crooning and I was crooning “Alleluia” and all of a sudden she was gurgling in tune to my singing -- which is nothing like you – “Alleluia” (the chorus “Alleluia”). And as I said God knows she heard the Gospel and while she was non-verbal and we worked so hard on her limbs to move them just 2 inches because she had never had any therapy at all and had been locked away in her home, she now had the freedom not just in that, but I truly believe to this day the freedom of Christ.
Joni: How many surgeries have you been through?
Care: After 98 surgeries, 11 bouts of cancer and hit by a drunk driver, had a spontaneous brain bleed and then of course this spring I had to find the last patch of Alaskan ice and slip and fall and add 10 more screws to my right arm and so people call me “Mrs. Loose Screws”.
Joni: How do you manage?
Care: You know, Joni, pain is not easy because no two days, no two hours are ever the same, but faith and an incredible family and friends who want to have fun – I can’t emphasize fun – more than that seek first and foremost the kingdom of God and all the things that he asked of you and everything is going to be okay and don’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow has enough cares of its own.
Joni: I think those are going to be encouraging words to a lot of our listeners. You will be happy to know, Care, that we have Wheels for the World team in Peru this week fitting hundreds of children and adults to wheelchairs along with giving Bibles and the Gospel. And friend take a look at the video about one young disabled girl who has been blessed through Wheels for the World and enjoy the photo I have posted of my friend, Care Tuk and me. Thanks for joining us, Care.
Care: Thanks for inviting me.
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