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Greetings and Happy Friday!
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Here are some highlights of the week:                  February 16, 2007
  • Amazon BooksSteven Covey just wrote a book around 63 of the most inspiring stories from the past 80 plus years of Readers Digest  magazines.
    We are included, in the chapter called “Vision”, right after a story
    about Walt Disney! Check it out.
  • Much thanks to Janet Kinosian for writing that Readers Digest article.
  • The marathon gave us our own surge, a surge of wheelchairs. Containers arrived in Kenya and Viet Nam, 12 containers are en route, 11 more are booked for transport, and 10 more are on order. 
  • We will soon add Belarus and Benin to our list of countries served.
  • Robert August and Free Wheelchair Mission join forces in Costa Rica. Surf industry icon and star of the groundbreaking surf film Endless Summer (1965) will share in wheelchair distribution and filming of the event.
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    I told this story at our dinner Saturday night before the Pacific Shoreline Run for Mobility marathon two weeks ago.  It is a wonderful story, and I want to share it with those of you who could not attend.  It comes from our partner Grace in Santiago:

    Alyn is 32 years old and lives in Linres, Chile. She suffers from sever scoliosis and neurological problems that are causing her to lose her eyesight. After she received her wheelchair I greeted Alyn and told her that the wheelchair was a gift of love from God to her. She gave me a big smile with a look of such gratitude and said:

    “Thank you so much! God Bless you. You have no idea how much this wheelchair and your words mean to me. I have been suffering from such a deep depression and have considered ending my live on several occasions. I won’t do it because it would cause my mother to suffer, and my family matters most to me, but I felt like I was in a prison, trapped  between four walls where I can’t move or do anything. I want to get out and do things and to be useful.

    Thank you everyone for the wheelchair. Now I can leave my prison. Not only have you given me a wheelchair but you’ve given me the hope I needed at a very difficult time in my life. God bless you all for the work that you do.”