This story comes from our good friend Richard Stephens of the Malawi Project. 

“He has a gentle and open nature like very few people that I've ever met,” reports Mark Thiesen, an American working in the southern part of Malawi. Mark has been part of a missionary family in Malawi since he was a small boy. His parents were missionaries in the northern part of the nation and now the mantel of responsibilities has moved down to the second generation. He is writing about Glen Kalitera who suffered a debilitating stroke in 2002. Glen is now in his 50’s and became a widower in 2003 with the death of his wife.

“Glen’s case is particularly sad,” Mark reports, “because he has no one who is willing to regularly come visit or encourage him.” Glen tells of one son who is working in South Africa and sends him money to live on, but Glen is lonely and must stay in his house all day. Another son lives nearby but does not come to visit as Glen wishes he would.
           
With the wheelchair arriving in Thondwe*, compliments of the Free Wheelchair Mission and the Malawi Project, Glen now has the freedom to get out for fresh air and to enjoy life again. He can also attend church services. Mark concludes, “When my mother and I delivered it, Glen wept.”

*Thondwe is a small trading center a few kilometers east of the southern Malawi city of Blantyre. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and is located in the sub-Sahara region of central Africa.