First Assignment COMPLETE and now preparing for the next!

We are grateful for our first opportunity to serve with the LDS Charities Wheelchair Initiative in west Africa and have just returned from three wonderful and EXHAUSTING weeks of training and evaluating in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana.

We worked with many wonderful clinicians and technicians and also met many incredible wheelchair users who are doing amazing things with their lives in spite of their disabilities.  We were certainly lifted and inspired by their courage and determination to move their lives forward in positive ways.

The struggles of these good African people are a stark reminder of how blessed we really are and how much we take these blessings for granted on a daily basis.  The beauty of the people and their unwavering faithfulness are graphic reminders of God's love and concern for ALL His children throughout the world.

Sierra Leone, west Africa

Our first missionary experience "in the field" is turning out to be harder AND better than we could have imagined.  We spent today assisting another team member with his training of local interviewers who can interview former recipients of the LDS Charities chairs.  Tomorrow we'll start our real work as Kim begins to evaluate Clinicians on how well they are using the skills of Assessment and Fitting that they were trained to do 6 months ago and I will be evaluating the wheelchair assembly and adjusting skills of the Technicians.  Internet access is poor and the weather hot and rainy even though the Rainy Season is over, but the PEOPLE are beautiful and wonderful.  We feel blessed to serve them.