Introducing Becky...

"Being on a Wheels team is an amazing chance to make a real difference, meet amazing friends, eat strange foods, swim in algae covered swimming pools, fly in tiny planes, go on long wiggly bus trips but most of all have great fun doing God's work!"

My name is Becky Nightingale and I'm a Christian worshipping at Highfield Church,  Southampton and working as a Senior Physio at Southampton Hospital.

I first fell in love with Africa as a student, having travelled to Uganda,and I realised God had bigger plans for me as a physio than just working in the NHS. I started going on Wheels trips in 2005 and have been to Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya. Wheels has enabled me to enjoy my passion for Africa while staying in full time employment in the UK.  I have been able to travel with my best friend and husband as a part of several teams and have also made amazing friends whilst on the trips.

For me, arriving in country seeing disabled people crawling in mud around a market and seeing children with huge birth deformities is heart-breaking. I truly don’t believe that the huge gap in health care, sanitation and education is how God intended the world to be. However working with Wheels gives me the opportunity to use my skills for God to vastly improve peoples’ lives and to use the wheelchairs as a tool to talk to people about God’s love for them. It is amazing to see a child walk for the first time or have the freedom of movement by sitting in a new wheelchair.

It is important that all the people we meet as a team realise that they are very special and perfect in God’s eyes. I remember on a trip to Ethiopia I was distressed to meet a very unwell child who we could not help in a practical way. However, through our work as a team we showed that family God’s love which was very important for them and community around them to see.

Mine and my husband experiences with Wheels have made us very much consider doing further work in Africa for longer periods of time, so watch this space...!!