Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope

Mrs. May's Chocolate Nuts

Episode Transcription

What does a bag of candy at Costco have to do with helping a paraplegic who drags himself through the dirt in a faraway country?  Well, some time back the owner of Mrs. May’s Chocolate Nuts found out about our ministry of taking wheelchairs around the world and fitting them to disabled kids.  She decided to go on a Wheels for the World outreach trip with us to Romania to find what it was all about.  She was so blessed, seeing so many disabled kids come to Christ, that she decided to put our Wheels for the World logo on the back of her candy bag… in order to give a small part of the proceeds to our wheelchair and Bible outreach.

Well, one Saturday morning, the director of a big rehabilitation supply company happened to go to Costco, and there he was meandering down the snack aisle, and he spotted the bag of Mrs. May’s Chocolate Nuts.  He had never heard of that company.  He flipped the bag over and that’s when he spotted our logo.  He had never heard of our ministry!  But the little wheelchair logo intrigued him and so he looked us up on the Internet.  Once he saw what we were doing to help people with disabilities, boy, did he get inspired.

The next week, guess what arrived at our office?!He donated a bunch of really spiffy, clean, spanking new sport wheelchairs with the low-slung backs, slanted wheels, and super ball bearings.  Not only that, he donated 200 leather wheelchair backs, sling seats, and several boxes of very valuable wheelchair parts.  The kind of stuff we really need, we really use.

I tell you, it’s amazing how God provides for needs – hey, at Wheels for the World, we are always in need of wheelchairs to take overseas, especially the really nice, sporty-looking chairs for paraplegics, the kind with the low-slung back and the super ball bearings, that kind that are really fast! I mean, we pray to get those chairs. We look everywhere for them, high and low.  We beg people for them. Who would have ever thought that a rehab equipment supplier we had never even met – a guy with a sweet tooth for great chocolate and nuts – would just happen to wander down the snack aisle and we’d end up getting some top-of-the-line wheelchairs?!  It’s wonderful because it means more kids and adults with disabilities will receive the love of Jesus Christ. 

Psalm 119:27 says, “So shall I talk of thy wondrous works.”  Yep, that’s me, always talking up the incredible and mysterious and astounding works, the ways God keeps advancing His kingdom.  He takes the smallest of things – a bag of chocolate nuts – and He ends up doing something truly big – souls rescued for the sake of Jesus.  And you know what?  God's doing the exact same thing in your life… taking the smallest of things and punchin’ a powerful impact for the sake of the kingdom.  So, friend, talk of His wondrous works in your life today.

 

 

Used by permission of

JONI AND FRIENDS

P.O. Box 3333

Agoura Hills, CA 93176

www.joniandfriends.org

©  Joni and Friends