Rooted and Built Up

Written by Steven - Serving in Thailand

My first two weeks in Thailand have been such a blessing. From day one I’ve seen God at work in so many ways, and I’m grateful to join in just one of them through the Wheelchair Project. Thank you for your prayers and support that made this possible—I’m excited for all God will teach me here.

So far, I’ve had training, been given a tour of the facilities, and helped with a shipment of well over 100 chairs from Wheels to the World—our first project as the new team! Most of the junior staff and volunteers help repair chairs for patients who come in, assemble new chairs for distribution, and work on special projects including welding, sewing, or taking trips out to patients with more serious disabilities that prevent them from coming to us.

My main takeaway so far from my time here is how much this ministry values helping others grow. Not just physically through their work, but also empowering everyone around them, patients and co-workers alike, to step into Kingdom work. On the physical side, the organization employs several local Thai believers, including a number of people who are wheelchair-bound themselves. And on the spiritual side, they focus on creating opportunities for the local church to minister to their patients with every distribution event. In a way, creating space for the church to reach the disabled population (and their families) is actually the primary mission, and providing wheelchairs is the doorway to accomplishing that.

I’ve seen this value most evidently through Moritz and Lea (my German hosts who you can see on the far left below!) as they lead this year’s group of new team members (mostly recent high school grads from Germany/Austria). They don’t just train us in the workshop—they disciple us at home, helping everyone cultivate their faith and modeling servant-hearted leadership. They see their mission here as not only serving the wheelchair project in daily operations, but also as pouring into young believers and helping them grow in their time. All this is why I’ve chosen the phrase “rooted and built up” (Colossians 2:7) as the title, as it reflects the underlying mission of the Wheelchair Project, both to the local people it serves, as well as the foreign missionaries that come to serve it.

Please pray for our team as we adjust to Thai culture, language, and work. We also have a special event at the end of the month where we’ve selected some special wheelchairs for several patients (mostly children) with more specific needs, and we will bring them to them and fit them, so pray that we get those chairs prepared in time, and that the fitting goes well.