Some news this week:

• We are accepted as a member of ECFA. ECFA is the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. They are a very well respected accreditation agency; focusing on board governance, financial transparency, integrity in fund-raising and proper use of charity resources. We are proud to be a member.
• One container arrived in DeNang, our second to Vietnam. Another container arrives in Kandla, India tomorrow.
• At least four of our distribution partners India were hit by last week's Tsunami. Although food, water and shelter are the acute needs in these areas, wheelchairs will soon be needed too. We have four more containers on the way to India. Our partner C.V. Vadavana has already distributed 300 wheelchairs in the affected areas of south India.
• Our donations continue to stream in! It will be another week at least to see how 2004 finishes for us. We hope the funds from our Christmas Campaign allow us to order 10 more containers in January. That would bring our total for the campaign to 22,000 wheelchairs! Check out our website to see our progress.

This story came from our mission trip to Chile last week.

There we met Maria who is blind and cannot walk for the past eight years from diabetes. Her daughter is Olga and her granddaughter is Iris. Olga found out about the possibility of receiving a wheelchair at the local hospital just two days earlier, but she did not want to tell Maria, as if it was not true, it would break Maria's heart. "Things like this do not just happen in Chile," said Olga. She made up an excuse to bring Maria to the hospital (by taxi). There in the hospital they all got a chance to meet the hospital director and the mayor, David Morales. And they got Maria's new wheelchair! I asked Olga if she had anything she would like to tell our supporters in the USA:

"For us, our biggest desire in our hearts was to have a wheelchair for our Maria. We do not have words enough to thank you. What a wonderful Christmas present."