Cole's Wheelchair

This will be my fourth wheelchair distribution; my first in Cameroon. On every trip I have been amazed at God’s provision. The right wheelchair or spare part or person “just happened” to be available. It has happened over and over. Maybe it’s because we’re looking for it more. Maybe God’s power is more obvious when we are weak and have so little to work with. Maybe there are lots of other reasons. But it’s always happened. It appears to be happening again already, even before we leave.

A couple weeks ago some friends gave us a wheelchair to bring up to the Joni and Friends office here in the Twin Cities. It belonged to Cole, but he had outgrown it. A nice pediatric chair, this is the kind that is always in short supply. The standard procedure would be that I would drop it off at the storage place, it would eventually get shipped to a refurbishing center, and then eventually find it’s way into a shipment to some developing country for distribution. Apparently not this time.

Last Tuesday I loaded it in my car and was planning to drop it off after work. Around noon I got an email from a friend of a Julie Anderson. They had heard we were bringing wheelchairs to Cameroon and knew of a little boy – Alex – who needed one and wondered if he could get one. The chairs that we shipped were already spoken for, so the answer was no. But I had that one chair in my car. After a few quick emails back and forth, and a trip out to the car to take a few measurements, we decided that Cole’s chair would probably fit Alex, and found that we would be able to bring it along as one item of our luggage. We have room, so Cole’s chair will be going with us. Only a few hours before I was to drop it off, the plan was totally changed. God’s timing never ceases to amaze me.

“We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) God had already prepared this beforehand, and we get to “walk in” what he’s doing and see it first.

-Bob