2009
February, 2009
Les Cayes, Haiti
“Do you think HWI has a trike for me to take to Haiti next week?” asked Dave Fisher. Jean Fisher who had just taken our last trike to Angola, Africa only months earlier relayed her husband’s question to Alice that same morning. By that afternoon, after praying and seeking counsel everything was set into motion.
Dr. Dave Fisher and his friend Chuck joined a group from Naperville Presbyterian Church (NPC) with whom HWI already had a working relationship and had gotten over 150 bikes to the victims of Katrina back in 2006-2007. The NPC team were headed on an 8-day mission trip. The team worked in conjunction with El Shaddai ministry in Les Cayes, Haiti. This mission is part of the Presbyterian Church of America.
Through our partnership with NPC and by sending this trike to Haiti “we were also able to do some more field testing. When the Haiti team returned, I [Alice] was humbled to read the account of the trike recipient.
Prior to receiving the trike, Maxene [a twenty-six-year-old] had believed his paralysis was the result of a voodoo spell. When he saw the trike, his face lit up. The team told him it was a gift from God, and one of the members of the team followed up with this prayer: ‘power is greater than any other power. Even over the roughest road, he can smooth it out.’
Maxene did not have any trouble negotiating the rocky, rut-filled, impossible-looking terrain on crutches, and he didn’t have any trouble with the trike either. As he rode away, practically in tears, with a smile beaming across his face, the team could tell he was experiencing a new kind of freedom. ‘For the rest of my life, I can never repay you for what you have done,’ he stated.
For the first time ever, he was able to get down to the river, where the locals bathe, by himself. The team’s prayer is that through a relationship with the pastor, Maxene will begin traveling the path toward true freedom and hope in Jesus Christ. One of the team members said that delivering the trike ‘was a blessing and highlight of my trip. Maxene has now witnessed the power of a loving God to help dispel the darkness of Voodoo worship that paralyzed his spiritual life.’
Maxene wrote, ‘I praise the Lord for you. God has used you to help me and to bring such a souvenir in my life. I had nobody, but God put me in your heart. What a gift! I will never stop thanking you and I will never stop glorifying the name of the Lord for this awesome gift. Now I need to go to church to praise Him. I know God will finish what he has already started. With Jesus nothing shall be impossible.’
I realized only God could have orchestrated such an ideal partnership.”*(p.151-152)
*Excerpt from, Teisan, Alice Riding on Faith: Keeping Your Balance When the Wheels Fall OFF, (2012).
May, 2009
Angola, Africa with Rise International
April 2009
Rwanda-Kilgalli, Rwanda
April 28, 2009
Alice visited PET, Penny Farms, FL
April 2009
Began trike discussion with Dr. Harold Adolph for Soddo Christian Hospital
December 23, 2009
Alice visited ITEC
January 26, 2010
HWI board visit to ITEC
January 2010
North Africa
“Jeremy was finishing the remaining fourteen trikes at the beginning of 2010, a representative of the Tunisian Embassy who had been a client at the fitness center he ran there saw him assembling trikes and started asking questions. Jeremy said, “He expressed some interest in the trikes and then came back to me a day or two later. He said he would like to purchase ten of them to be given away at a future charitable event to be held by the Tunisian Embassy. I only had eight left, but I sold them all to him.”* (p. 163)
*Excerpt from, Teisan, Alice Riding on Faith: Keeping Your Balance When the Wheels Fall OFF, (2012).
April 2010
Moved into our new Headquarters
May 2010
Crate sent to Ethiopia
December 31, 2010
Crate arrived at Soddo Christian Hospital in Ethiopia
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