WFTW

What is Wheels For The World?

Wheels For The World is an outreach program of Joni and Friends ministry where used and discarded wheelchairs are collected by volunteers, refurbished by inmates at correctional facilities and distributed in developing countries by short-term missionaries. The wheelchair is a gift greater than gold to the disabled who otherwise face a lifetime confined to bed. A gift from God, the wheelchair meets a temporal need, while the ultimate gift through Jesus Christ meets an eternal need. With every wheelchair, walker, crutch or cane distributed, the Gospel is shared in deed and word. The primary purpose of Wheels For The World is to evangelize the lost and share the good news of Jesus Christ to those affected by disability.

Returning...

Good evening,
I will post more, but thought I would try and add some quick thoughts on Peru and experiences there.  I think the most awesome part of the trip is the ease which I/we can see God working.  From the heartbreaking stories from the patients, to the love shown by the Peruvians and our teammates.  God's grace constantly was apparent from the availability of perfect wheelchairs, to the availability of the right medicines.  And the openness   of the people to God and hearing His message of redemption was inspiring.
I think the saddest, yet most God glorifying story is of a young 14 year old girl who had been neglected for here entire life, and ended up in a hospital, starved and weighing 40lbs before a Christian orphanage had adopted her 4 months ago. Despite a lifetime of neglect, her attitude was joyous, and she won the hearts of everybody she interacted with.  This orphanage had a full house of girls loving and showing Christ to this girl, and it showed so much.  It was a testament to what God's love can do!

Thank you for praying...I know you did because we did not have very many good wheelchairs left to give away today. But we did give many wheelchairs away, and after a lot of adjustments and Hand made parts, they looked pretty good if I say so myself! We are seeing a lot of people with rheumatoid arthritis, paraplegia and children with cerebral palsy. At least 3 children have taken their first steps with a special walker one of our therapists makes out of adult walkers. We are out of canes, so our mechanics have been making standard canes out of adult walker by cutting them in half. Pretty amazing. The routine is that when people arrive to the clinic, they are evaluated by a therapist, prayed for by the team of therapist, interpretor, mechanic and guide, and fitted and given the equipment they need. Then they go to see the doctor and nurses where they receive medicine, wounds are dressed, and the health team counsels/prays for them, and then they are presented the gospel by the Peruvian volunteers from the church where the outreach is held. The church is called Iglesia Alianza Cristiana y Misionera. The Peruvians are very direct about presenting the gospel and asking for a response-what is your decision? Then they record the responses. Yesterday ~100 people made a profession of faith or re-committment to Christ. It seems to me that those who are so very poor-many live in houses with dirt floors, are rich in faith. It is all they have! People come from many surrounding towns, some from 1-5 hours away. We have seen many people from the highlands (mountains). They are short and small but sturdy people. Another exciting thing happened today-I met a missionary from Wycliffe who has just finished translating the Bible into Quecha-the language of the people from from the highlands. How wonderful to get to see the fruits of your labors before you die! My mechanic Michelle and I cried twice today over the suffering of two of our patients. We had to go behind the curtain because we try to be brave but caring when face to face. The first woman had many deformities from rheumatoid arthritis. She lives high in the mountains and spends most of her time on the floor. She is 31-no husband-her daughter 16 cares for her and somehow supports them. She has a 4th grade education. She is on the floor because she is too heavy and it is too difficult of a lift to move her from the bed to the floor. We had to lift her on a blanket-every move is excruciating for her. We take our modern medicine for granted. Well, sorry this is so long. I must go to bed in preparation for another rich day of serving our King. Thank you so much for your prayers. The labor is very hard, but bearing much fruit both now and for eternity. With love, Pat

Monday- Well started off the day with almost everyone taking a cold shower because the electricity went out. Burrrrrr. Had a wonderful devotional about STRETCH MARKS!!! We really need to stretch and know that God will show up when we feel we can't do "it". We may be comfortable with the things in our lives and get in a routine, but while on this trip we WILL be stretched beyond belief. We got to the site this morning and were all ready to get started!!! What a wonderful beginning to our week of distribution. But we WERE STRETCHED!!! After dinner we all shared the amazing events of the day and expressed how very much God showed up today. I will be listing some of the comments from different people: 1. Lydia (nurse) while seeing a patient, she began talking about the boy from the community. She was the grandmother who was now the parent of this boy. Her daughter, son-in-law, and 2 other grandchildren were in a horrible accident and all died except this little boy and his brother. He was covered head to toe in scabes. They only have 1/2 glass of milk for breakfast and dinner and for lunch a bowl of soup 2. Pat and Michelle- used the first 3 wheeler. The lady loved it. She had a huge smile on her face. She began to wheel around and was having so much fun with it. 3. Pat and Michelle-a lady with terrible Arthritis. Her daughter was about 50 years old. She has been carrying her mother around on her back. The daughter has bad back pain. Mom is in so much pain it hurt to just lift her leg up. There is no money for meds. 4. Aaron and Kathy found the perfect chair. It looked like a bed. Murphy's law doesn't seem to work. Things DO work out!! 5. Reid was asking people to pray for patience. Their 1st one reid and frank had a 7 y/o who was wailing. Had a great fear in his eyes. They laid hime on the cushion. Amy Jo came to save the day. She played with him with puppets. He never gets on sides or sits up. Mother and husband showed up late. Grandma cares for him. 6. Eunice- brake extention needed to be made. She had a peruvian help her. He heated up the PVC and smashed it. He used cardboard to start a fire to melt the PVC. 7. Stacie walked into her room at the outreach and found a bag of meds on the floor. There were so many meds they needed and had been talking about trying to find. They had even been praying for God to help us. 8. Frank's most complicated was a little boy. He knew God was leading the way. Felt prepared after that. 9. Amy Jo said it was so humbling to talk to people. There was a man who had been waiting for 24 years for a wheelchair. Angels are watching over me. My husband is in a wheelchair too. sometimes I call for people and no one comes. 10. Eunice had a trio of 3 OLD men (like 90 and above). They were singing to Giannina, and michelle. The girls of Huanuco. He was all in love with Giannina even when holding Michelle's hand. 11. Giannina talked to people of the church. She was talking to the counselor ladies. They didn't understand how huge this process was gonna be. 'Wow hermana, that's more than we expected. Mone on 2nd day. We are just tools from God...Tools of LOVE! 12. Michelle- had a boy named Miguel come. He was very involved. Needed a bed type stretcher. He understood things and seemed pretty happy. I started talking with him asking him if he liked to swim. He started laughing and smiling. I told him I thought he was so sweet and that I think he is my new boyfriend. He would smile so big and make so much noise!!! When we finished, we took a picture and he raised his hands and pointed to God. We was amazing and had so much love.

Sunday

Sunday-Well, today was busy, productive, entertaining, educational, and full of God's work. In the morning, we met for breakfast....eggs, eggs, and more eggs. We then met for a devotional with Reid leading the time. We sat out by the pool, worshiped, prayed, and spoke about prayer needs. We have a terrific and faithful team!!! We then went to the church, had service, and opening ceremony. We gave a woman who has a broken hip (for who knows how long and will never be able to get it fixed) a wheelchair. She was so happy to be able to move around. She has not been able to walk at all for a very long time. Her face was glowing, her smile was all teeth, and the thankfullness she had was unspeakable. After the opening ceremony, we took a tour of Huanuco. We got to see some beautiful country. We saw churches from the 1500's, we saw bridges made out of egg whites, sand, and lime (the egg whites help flexibility during the hundreds of earthquakes they have each year), we saw sugar cane farmland and the food and drink they make from it, we saw a ceremonial building that is 4000 years old. Then we returned to our hotel for a quick bite, took group pictures, and headed back to the distribution site to set up for tomorrow's 1st day of distribution!!! WOW, amazing....we had about 40 people there and everyone worked so well together and got EVERYTHING done!!! WE R READY!!! Got back to the hotel at 11:30 and the last event of the night occured when a waiter brought a group of us ladies some tea and coffee. Mary initiated a conversation with him asking if he would like us to pray for him. Elizabeth followed up with a few words. Within minutes, he sat down, was so very interested in knowing about God, and asked Him to come into his heart. He was crying and so excited to hear the good news of his new friend....GOD!!!! What a wonderful way to end our evening!!!

Mary, Giannina, and Michelle got to work today at the distribution site. We spent many hours organizing the chairs, getting rooms ready, shopping, visiting our old and new Peruvian friends and pastor Enrique!!! The church was full of excited people and people eager to work on converting the church to our distribution site. We have many chairs without foot rests but we will be on a search for them tomorrow. The rest of the team came in today!!! Everyone is so excited to see and meet each other. We went to the church and had the opening ceremony, meet the pastor and the volunteers, sang and played Bingo. In the evening, crazies went for a late night walk and saw many fun and exciting things.