It was October 2006 when our friend Scaria brought Shaji a wheelchair. Shaji was a woodcutter and a coconut picker in Southern India. He fell from a tree and broke his back. He was the lone bread-winner of a family of five living in an 8 foot by 10 foot home. Shaji told Scaria that he sometimes wept all day, seeing the hardship he placed on his family, as they scrambled to survive financially and to tend to his broken body.

One morning, 18 months later, Scaria met a young woman waiting to speak with him. He recognized her as Shajie’s wife; she told Scaria that Shaji had died. Scaria thought for sure that she was going to ask him for financial help, but her request was totally different:

"Sir, you took many photos while you gave Shaji his wheelchair. We were all so happy! Can you please give me a copy of just one photo? We have no photos of him at all. As my children grow up, I need to show them their loving dad. They will need that picture to show to our next generation."

Photos are not an affordable luxury for most people in India. They didn’t even have wedding pictures. Scaria asked if she could take a photo during the burial function.

"Sir, I do not want a photo of my husband in a coffin. If I could only get a photo of that day you came. That was the happiest day!"

Scaria searched his files. He searched again and again: Nothing. Then he asked us. We have thousands of photos in our database and it turned out that Scaria had sent us copies from the 2006 distribution! We sent it back to him and Scaria had enlargements printed and framed. You can tell from the photo in this story how happy it made this family! Scaria also learned that Shaji’s wife had recently become a Christian. She plans to pass Shaji’s wheelchair on to another villager in need.

Thank you, Scaria, for being such a good and faithful servant!

Our dear friends Tom and Patty brought this story back from a recent mission trip they took with their family to distribute wheelchairs to Cambodia and Vietnam:

“I want to go to school. I feel so sad because I can not stand up or walk like other normal children. Looking at them going out, I cry a lot and wish I could go out to play with my friends.”

These words are from a girl named Doan Thi Nhat Oanh. Her parents are poor farmers. They live in Binh Dinh Province.

“When my mom was pregnant with me, she had a traffic accident and it affected my development in the womb. I have been in a paralytic situation since I was born.”

Doan has been paralyzed for 14 years so she just stays at home.

Despite her less-fortunate fate, she has never given up the dream of finishing her studies. She has wished to have a wheelchair to go to school everyday and to go out with her friends.

“It will be easier for me to go out with this wheelchair. I can roll around by myself without anyone helping me. Before I get the wheelchair I must crawl to anywhere I want to go. It makes my hands and knees painful; and my clothes dirty. But now, without crawling, I can go out. I feel so happy! I don’t know what I should say right now. I want to thank the donors and FWM for the wheelchair. I hope that you will pay more attention to those who have the same situation as me.”

This is a big weekend for us, because after 9 months of planning and hard work, our Mobility in Motion national campaign gets underway! Join us this Saturday and Sunday at Mariners Church in Irvine, CA. On Monday, we travel all of two miles to the University of California Irvine (UCI) campus for an 11:30 am kick-off and a presentation with Chancellor Drake and Professor Michael McCarthy. 

You may see us on the news again, as there is a hope to get our truck parked on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House in DC on 4/29. Oh, by the way, here is our very conspicuous truck:

If you are anywhere near our Truck Stops, please stop by, we would love to meet you. We have time for more stops too, so if you want us to make one in your own neighborhood, let us know. Check our website for information.

Our strategy is simple. We are starting to get national recognition, and we want to spend these next three months getting more. Americans have to hear about the 100 million people who need a wheelchair. The more we can tell about our modest but effective $48.35 solution, the more people will get behind our mission. No one should have to crawl. No one!

This story comes from our great friend Lauren. She was on a vacation in Cambodia when this happened:

I was in Siem Reap doing too much shopping. Kurt and I stumbled across a man on the corner whose legs were not fully developed and were twisted up upon his lap. His knees were ashy from all the dragging he'd done over many years. I, like you, can NEVER pass up someone on the street like him and not give something. I looked into my wallet and saw that I had one dollar left. "GREAT JOB, Lauren," I thought, "you spent every dollar on material things and when you need it to make a difference in the world, and not in your closet, you missed the chance". I gave him the dollar and a smile and walked around the corner wishing I had something else or more to give. This is where the magic happened.

One block up we came upon an office that had four Free Wheelchair Mission wheelchairs outside. I was stunned! I ran inside asking a million questions in one breath, "Where did you get these? How did you get these? Why are they sitting here?" I was so excited to see this, a mission that I believe so much in and is so close to my heart, there right in front of me. The man turned around slowly and with a low delicate voice he replied, "I brought them here. I used to be the Cambodian Ambassador to the USA". He told me that he gives the chairs out when he sees someone in need of mobility.

I dropped my bags and ran down the street praying that man would still be where I left him. There he was! I approached him with so much excitement I perhaps took him off guard. I said with my now, out of breath broken English, and with sign language of wheel motions with my arms, “I have a wheelchair for you, I have a wheelchair for you. Come! Come!"

He followed me. He removed his flip flops from his hands that had dragged him for all his life and climbed into his new chair. He got a handle on how it worked and rolled around, enjoying every movement it made. It was touching to see how he was learning to roll himself around, just a few meters away from where he had lain on the ground. He looked at me and clasped his hands together with a smile in gratitude. I did the same and added an American “thumbs up”, hoping I had let him know that in some way the life change that he had just experienced was just as great for me.

Lauren wanted me to add this message:
"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them he cried, "Great God how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?" God said, "I did do something. I made you" - Sufi Teaching

Jeanine, one of our Free Wheelchair Mission staff members, manages our database. She recently went to Chile on a mission trip.

Free Wheelchair Mission feels it is important that employees know first hand the experience of distributing wheelchairs to the disabled poor. This past week I was often struck by the love, endurance, pain, and sacrifice of those who cared for disabled family members. One morning, our group drove to an area well outside the city of Santiago. For several hours we went from one home to the next delivering wheelchairs to people with all sorts of disabilities.

Among the last people we visited was 98 year old Miguel Sevedra. His little farm was unkempt. Mr. Sevedra´s daughter welcomed us into a large room constructed of wooden slats on a dirt floor. In contrast to the scene outside, this room was very neat, swept clean of the dust that covered everything outside. His daughter had bathed and shaved him and dressed him carefully. He was covered with an impeccably clean blanket. It was clear that his entire daughter’s energy went into her father’s care.

She had lost her mother when she was very young, and she began to cry as she told us that Mr. Sevedra had been both father and mother to her. He was diagnosed with cancer four years earlier, and it was now advanced. A few days before, he had received a dose of morphine to help with the pain. She knew he didn’t have long to live, and tears showed her dread of his passing.

She told us of a local festival that brought the family some comfort just a few weeks earlier. The festival of Quasimodo began over a hundred years ago to protect the priests from thieves who stole the gold and silver communion vessels. So the townspeople began to accompany the priests in procession, and now the people commemorate this once a year by following the priest on horseback as he goes from one house to another. Hundreds of people on horseback had accompanied the priest when he visited Mr. Sevedra to give him communion. This tradition had meant a great deal to Mr. Sevedra’s daughter, perhaps easing, however briefly, the sense of isolation she must have felt and allowing her father to feel part of a community as he had been unable to do since being confined to his bed. The wheelchair, I thought, would allow her to take her father out of the house and perhaps to enjoy the company of neighbors again.

Our Mobility in Motion campaign has passed through Irvine, Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Washington DC, and Boston, and today we are in Chicago. It has been very exciting, both in the planned events and in the surprises along the way. Here is one wonderful surprise, which demonstrates the ripple effect our mission is having around the country. We received this encouraging update from Diane Rasz with Wellsburg Middle School last week:

The "Wheeling Feeling" is contagious. Wellsburg is 16 miles north, but our little town shares the same enthusiasm for this wonderful project as the big city!

Notice the flags with the Free Wheelchair Mission logo on them.

I want to fill you in on our efforts at Wellsburg Middle School. On Monday I approached our principal to ask if I could run a spring service project and gave her a little background. We called our 440 students to the auditorium after lunch. I explained about the 100 million people living on the ground. I showed the video. Then I set our goal at 20 wheelchairs... one per homeroom. We started collecting immediately and by Tuesday morning, we had raised enough to cover 10 chairs! The 6th grade teacher had been selling gumballs all year to purchase snacks for our students during our state testing, but our kids told us the chairs were more important, they could bring their own snacks and the gumball money should be donated to the Free Wheelchair Mission. Our fine arts teachers are sponsoring an ice cream sundae sale during our lunches today - Friday. Our home-economics teacher is organizing a teacher luncheon to help raise money as well.

Our students are seeing how good it feels to help another human being. When I left last Friday, we were just under 44 chairs. The kids keep raising our goal. Now they're shooting for 50! We feel so good about being part of this project.”

This story comes from Rick who runs an organization called E3. He met these two men as he gave away Free Wheelchair Mission wheelchairs in Ethiopia. 

The first man pictured is named Gush which means “strong.” Pictured with him are his two children. He works as a tailor; his work area is a little piece of ground under a tarp located close to other shops so people will notice him. Prior to receiving the wheel chair, he would have to drag himself along the ground for a half mile to reach his work area and sewing machine. 

With his wheelchair he is now able get back and forth to his sewing machine easily. He is hopeful that he will be able to save enough money so he can rent actual store front space to continue his business. When we visited him in his home, he had tears expressing his gratitude for the gift of the wheel chair.

The next man is named Hadgu, which means “save another person.” This is a fitting name for him, as he was walking down the street one day he witnessed two men cruelly beating up a girl. He stepped in to try to stop them and they turned on him. They beat him so badly that they broke his back and left him paralyzed. He has been out of work for many months. As a result he may lose his house and the entire family will have to re-locate to a much less expensive home. The gift of a free wheelchair means that he is now able to get out of his house and try to find work to help support his family. 

This is a very different Friday story. We have made it a rule that our Friday Story focuses on the good news our wheelchairs bring. But today we feel we must make an exception.

The world was stunned by the news of the earthquake in China. Finally, we now have a way to help the people in China. Holistic Integrated Services Foundation (HIS) is a small nonprofit in Fullerton, CA, that has cleared a path with the Red Cross in Sichuan Province to accept up to 4400 of our wheelchairs. HIS is willing to put up $50,000 in a matching challenge. One of the factories that manufactures our wheelchairs is putting up another $13,000 as a challenge grant. 

If we can raise $63,000 in the next few days, they will contribute their $63,000, and we can get 2600 wheelchairs from Shanghai to the injured and disabled in China.

Please give this challenge serious consideration. We have all seen the sadness of devastation on the news. The factory will work overtime to make these wheelchairs as quickly as they can.

This story represents what we find happening all over the USA. People like Tim Jr. are discovering how powerful they can be in helping others. Here us a copy of the appeal letter Tim Jr. sent to his family and friends:

This story comes from Cebu City, Philippines, and our partners there, CHDI Philippines:

Our first recipient! Joseph is a 13 year old boy who is the size of a 6 year old. Quiet and shy, he sat in his chair with an expression of wonderment. He cracked his first smile only after Jeannie D. brought out a package of Jelly Bellys.

We entered his neighborhood through a 3-foot narrow rocky path. His 11 siblings, mother, and neighbors stood around us amidst the cement, wood, and “half” constructed homes of their urban development. This was an “event”!

But here is the story behind the story. What joy we have seeing God already at work! We are joining him in his work!

Joseph’s neighbor, Lilia, has been sharing Bible studies with his mother and siblings. She had been praying for a way to relieve Joseph from crawling on the dirt, gravel, and mud of his neighborhood. She wanted to call GMA 7, a local television station, but felt God saying “No, just wait.”

God’s answer was on the way already! An ocean away, our team was preparing this work. Friday, upon her return from visiting family, Lilia heard of this wheelchair distribution from a former employee and friend. Through her church, the contact was made. Lilia’s prayers were answered in a way she could never imagine. “I could never afford this,” she says of the wheelchair, “this is God’s answer to my prayers.”

This story comes from Nias, Indonesia. Nias was hit hard after the tsunami in 2004.

As we were returning from South Nias, we saw one of the young men we gave a wheelchair to a while ago. He has one leg missing from the knee the other leg is malformed. He was going down the roadway in his wheelchair. We stopped to see how he was doing. His comment was, "I am just taking a walk". 

Just think - he had never been able to do this before. The only way he could move was to walk with his hands as he slid along on his broken legs and bottom. When asked what he had to say about Free Wheelchair Mission, he said, "Praise God and the people who gave me the wheelchair." He said he was happy that his legs and bottom did not get wet and muddy, as it did when he slid along the ground after a rain. With the wheelchair, he can do his job of cutting hair better --- he is the primary support of his widowed mother. It requires a lot of haircuts on market day each week at 3500 Rp per hair cut (about $0.40 US) to feed a family. Life is tough in Nias, Indonesia but we made it easier for Koyibal.

This story comes from a Masters Program group in Houston that funded and then helped distribute a container of wheelchairs in Peru. The wonderful news is that the program is spreading all over the USA and Free Wheelchair Mission is one of their favorite programs.

Jesusa Cordova was very quiet and somber as she let her daughter-in-law tell us that she is 87 years old. Jesusa’s back gave out and she has had to stay in bed for the last year. When her daughter-in-law said it will now be possible for her to go outside and go to church, she started to smile. But, when we got out the Polaroid camera, she lit up and became very animated and chatty with her daughter in law. She giggled like a school girl and was so excited to have her picture taken with her new wheelchair. It was wonderful to see the joy bubble up in her, and her daughter-in-law was so happy and grateful for the chair and the freedom it would bring to both of them.

This past week our Mobility in Motion campaign was in Boise, ID. They call their campaign “Idaho Believes”, meaning they believe in our mission. We had 11 events/presentations in 5 days. One was quite particular, when pastors from 22 different churches competed in the Pastors Challenge – a race around a course in our wheelchairs! Three of the 4 local TV stations covered the event, as about 200 people cheered. Many of these pastors want to introduce our mission to their congregation.

Many of the local communities also raised funds for us. Melba is a small town of under 500 people. Pam, of the Community Baptist Church, had her vacation Bible school bring in loose change. This is what she wrote:

Whew! I know this stop on your tour isn't a "big" one. But we are so grateful that you were able to come to Melba. To us, this has been a huge event! And just like everybody, everywhere, the families in our town are definitely being hit with hard economic times. Because our town is out in the country, the parents are especially being hurt by fuel prices and having to commute to work. So, we know that the offering we are able to present to you is truly a gift from God.

We had a total of 80 kids come to VBS this year. We collected all the coins in a wheelbarrow and then weighed how much was in there. Those kids brought in 381.4 pounds of offerings for FWM, most of that is in coins! The kids baked and decorated 22 cakes, which were auctioned off for $673.00. We had additional gifts from church and community members, and after a few more donations at church this morning, our total for FWM is $3,771.30!

In the photo you will notice a wheelbarrow, and in it is the 381.4 pounds of coins the kids brought in. I tried hard to have them throw in the wheelbarrow in the total weight!