New Beginnings in the New Year!

It’s a New Year filled with God’s provision and new beginnings!

And our Joni and Friends Bay Area team is rolling up their sleeves and diving into a brand-new year of ministry, eagerly anticipating how God will meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of more and more families living with disability in 2022!

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Isaiah 43:19

We keep sharing the Gospel with families living with disability all over the world. And in this New Year we will bring Christ-centered encouragement and practical help to even more special needs families worldwide! Families like Yolanda and her daughter, Gabriela… just listen to their incredible story.

Yolanda arrived at our Wheels for the World outreach in Guadalajara, Mexico carrying Gabriela in her arms and wondering if this could be the day her daughter might finally receive the wheelchair she needed so desperately.

Gabriela was born 13 years ago with cerebral palsy and is non-verbal. Yolanda does her best to care for Gabriela, but they have a very hard life. As a single mother caring for her disabled child 24 hours a day and forced to either carry Gabriela everywhere she goes or leave her home alone and unattended, Yolanda simply cannot afford adequate medical care for her little girl.

She began to lose hope and believed that Gabriela would never have a wheelchair.

Sadly, what we consider to be a medical necessity here in the United States is often an unattainable luxury in places like Guadalajara. Yolanda longed for a wheelchair for her daughter but considered it an impossible dream… until she came to our Wheels for the World outreach.

When our Joni and Friends Bay Area team first met Gabriela, she was very quiet and reserved. Yet while our physical therapists and mechanics worked tirelessly to custom-fit her wheelchair, a beautiful smile lit up her face as well as the whole room! Gabriela’s life was forever changed with her new gift of mobility. And her joy and gratitude were contagious!

After Gabriela was safely in her new seat of dignity, we shared the Gospel with her and her mother.

They learned about God’s redeeming love, and they listened closely as the Good News of Jesus was explained through the colorful beads on the Gospel bracelets we gave them. Yolanda and Gabriela welcomed Jesus into their hearts, and now Yolanda clearly sees the visible Gospel with her own eyes every time she looks at her daughter in her new wheelchair sent by God!

This is only one of countless stories we could tell you of hearts and lives miraculously transformed by the love of Jesus. Your prayers and support impact so many more special needs families in the Bay Area and in Mexico – all for God’s kingdom!

The need is great! And at Joni and Friends, we’re keenly aware that we must do all we can to reach the next generation with the Gospel of Jesus. God’s clearly given us the biblical commission to “go out quickly…and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame…” so that God’s house will be full. (Luke 14:21-23).

Please join us as we celebrate the beginning of another year of power-packed ministry as we bring honor and glory to our Savior, Jesus by serving children, adults, and families living with disabilities both locally and internationally.