Wheelsblog - Kenya 2018 - Back Home, Final Thoughts
The Wheels for the World team are now back home after ten days bringing wheelchairs to disabled people around the area, and changing lives with the gift of mobility. In this final blog, team member Jill sums up what the trip has meant to the whole team, and the amazing changes and God-prompted moments they've seen. Thank you for your support through this whole trip!
---
By now each team member will have returned home and probably have been recounting their adventures with family, a friends and their local church members. It is difficult to sum up the work the team has been doing but it is obvious that many people have had a life changing experience. Time and again carers said that the provision of a wheelchair would lift the burden they have carried for many years. As a direct result of the publicity the Centre has received during our distribution, Pastor Davis has been given a salon hair dryer for his mothers on their Beauty Course and ten white canes for visually impaired people.
We saw God’s intervention right up to the end of the trip. Andy and Jill needed to return to the Centre early Friday morning before leaving for Nairobi. On arrival they found the Medical Superintendent for Nakuru Hospital had just arrived to collect a wheelchair, since he had heard about the distribution and wanted one for use in his hospital. ‘It so happened’ that Pastor Davis had accompanied Andy and Jill so he was able to ask the caretaker to unlock the room where the remaining equipment was stored so we could give out the 118th wheelchair. Only God could have orchestrated everyone to be in the right place at the right time, as 10 minutes later we would be
having our final team meeting in the hotel.
Our pastor, Susan, has had the privilege of praying with almost every client and has written the following: “Carry ‘everything’ to God in prayer - our Heavenly Father loves us, delights in his children and neither slumbers or sleeps. So when I think about carrying ‘everyone’ to God in prayer it includes a child who has hemiplegia and is blind and deaf; the blind man; the child who has never walked and now walks with an adapted Zimmer frame. What is it to carry? I think of the mother who has carried her daughter for 36 years and now has a wheelchair!
A 66 year old man cries with thankfulness, an older man sings praise to God and a young boy with crutches sings in his own language how great God is, Amen, how awesome God is and how amazing God is! The angels in heaven rejoice as a young girl of 14, a man aged 60 and a mother and father all ask to learn about Jesus and confess Jesus as Lord . . . .and this was just the first day. I had the privilege of offering the Bible to each individual in Kiswahili or Kikuyu. Some asked for English Bibles and 4 Gideon New Testament and Psalms were given out. Every Bible showed verses to help when facing fear, weariness, needing wisdom etc. Rejoice, again I say rejoice in the
love, grace and mercy of our God.
Although we leave the work continues. We were distressed to hear from Pastor Davis last night that 74 people were camping in church due to intertribal fighting and they had taken one child to hospital. Please pray for a quick resolution of the problem and wisdom as Pastor Davis and his team support those in great need. Today, Michael, our team member from Kimilili, posted that he had pushed Dylan to church in his new wheelchair. Apparently there were lots of ‘shocked, popped out eyes’ as they saw Dylan, so he asks for prayer that the children in his church will be able to accept and learn to include this boy in the church family.
As a team we would like to thank you for following our Blog and supporting us in prayer. We know that without your input we could not have completed this task and seen God work in so many amazing ways. THANK YOU.
