Wheelchair Collection Month

“I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises… let all who are helpless take heart.”

Psalm 34:1-3

When our Wheels for the World team returned from Cuba, I was handed a small, folded note written in halting English by Rosita, an 11-year-old Cuban girl with spina bifida. This child had spent most of her life dragging herself through the dirt or being pushed in a rusty, adult-sized wheelchair.

Then our Wheels team came to her village. We lifted Rosita off the ground and into her new, junior-sized pink wheelchair with streamers on the handles. It was smooth, fast, and she could not contain her joy. Overwhelmed with gratitude for her wheelchair and children’s Bible, Rosita was bubbling over. She excitedly asked if she could send me a note. And so, I unfolded it and read her scrawled words…

I was thrilled that she treasured her new wheelchair, but there was something else. I was moved by Rosita’s heart of gratitude. Her family is very poor by America’s standards, and knowing that I would personally read her message, Rosita could have asked for many things. But she didn’t.

She simply gushed with gratitude, then signed her name, “Without any other thing and much love!”

This is what makes Wheels for the World so special.

The result? Rosita, and thousands like her, gain a new heart in Christ that brims over with gratitude to God. All of it ignites the Savior’s glory, making his goodness shine even brighter with every wheelchair and Bible given!

Rosita was talking about you when she wrote, “We are so happy to know that there are people that care about disabled in Cuba.”

And I hope that makes your heart bubble over with gratitude. As you pray for and support Wheels for the World, you are filling up someone’s desperate need.

By the way, it’s Wheelchair Collection Month, so donate your used but serviceable chair to Joni and Friends. That said, without any other thing and with much love… God bless you for caring!

–Joni Eareckson Tada