It is always an exciting day when I wave goodbye to one of our Wheels for the World teams heading out to different parts of the globe with wheelchairs and Bibles. And today is especially exciting because our team is heading to Africa. Oh, how I wish Ken and I were going with them…
It was around this time last year that I was in Ghana, West Africa helping to deliver wheelchairs and Bibles. What an experience that was! I will never forget meeting a woman named Abumajah – she was a large African woman who had laid in bed for 17 years. And if she wasn’t in bed, she was crawling across the floor, dragging her legs behind her. I just happened to be there at the wheelchair distribution when she received her very first chair, fit exactly to her specifications. She started crying and she reached for my hand and kept saying over and over, “Thank you, thank your people, thank my Jesus, thank my God, I thank all your friends, thank you, thank you!” I had never met a woman filled with such gratitude. And I was deeply touched that she overflowed with thanksgiving to God for such a small gift as a wheelchair.
Also at that same wheelchair and Bible distribution, I met little Herman. His legs were bent and he was carried in by his mother. I watched the physical therapist fit him to a little child-sized wheelchair which, of course, he just loved. But then the therapist took a closer look at his legs and realized – hmmm – if Herman had a little walker with a sling to support his hips, why… I just bet he could walk! Well before I knew it, that therapist and her friend were hack-sawing a child-sized walker and bolting and screwing a little handmade harness onto it and then, they invited Herman to give it a try. I thought he was excited with that wheelchair! It nowhere near matched his joy over that little walker! Because there he was tentatively taking his first few steps standing up. His legs were weak and like jelly, but no doubt about it – he was walking for the first time in his life. You should have seen his mother – she couldn’t stop crying. No wonder Herman and his mother opened up their hearts to Christ that day and gladly received the gift of a Bible. No wonder Abumajah and so many others overflowed with gratitude.
Friend, stories like that and hundreds more will be happening starting tomorrow when our Wheels for the World team arrives in Africa. Would you please join me in prayer, asking God to reap a rich harvest of souls as we give the Gospel with each chair? People with disabilities in Africa need the help and hope of Jesus. Psalm 10:17 says that God hears the cry of the afflicted… and as we give each wheelchair and Bible, the Lord will also hear their joy and thanksgivings.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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