After Gary Moreau, executive director of Mobility Worldwide, presented a program to the James Circle of the United Methodist Church in Mexico, church members quickly decided to contribute the dollars necessary to build two mobility carts, which their Sunday school children decorated to send to Kenya. 

Following the presentation, church members reached out to the Mexico community to find other mobility devices that Mobility Worldwide needed to ship with mobility carts to Kenya and other locations — the project soon began to expand due to support from the community.

Because of the combined work and donations of four Mexico churches, Mexico VFW, Laura Miller George Help Center, and the R-1 North Callaway R-1 School District, more than 150 people in Ghana will get mobility devices.

Altogether, 15 canes, two sets of arm braces, 10 wheelchairs, 23 walkers, and 52 sets of crutches were collected. All these devices were packed by employees of Gold Crest Distributing and quickly loaded along with 53 mobility carts provided at no cost by Mobility Worldwide and loaded on two 40-foot containers on July 13 and 14. 

Community contributions

Brad Lower, a member of the church and Mexico VFW, was aware that the VFW had a surplus of mobility devices that had been donated to them. His wife, Beth, and other James Circle members, organized the cleaning of these devices with the help of the Presbyterian Church.

On July 11, 11 volunteers from both organizations cleaned and loaded 35 walkers, five wheelchairs, seven canes, and two pairs of arm braces, which were donated to Mobility Worldwide.

Unbeknownst to the Presbyterian and the United Methodist congregations, information regarding the project had already been shared with St. John’s Lutheran and St. Brendan’s Catholic churches, and it was added to the bulletins. 

Nancy Goedeke, a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church and a volunteer at The Laura Miller George Help Center, orchestrated the cleaning and donation of surplus mobility devices as well as some hospital and bedside toilets that handicapped individuals so often need to Mobility Worldwide. 

Julie McKeown, a member of the Catholic Church, and her brother John Wilbers donated their father’s mobility devices to Mobility Worldwide. They are the children of the late Dr. Raymond Wilbers, a longtime physician in Mexico who passed away last year. 

All the donated items were gathered into the Gold Crest Distributing warehouse in Mexico. These two containers are being shipped directly to Ghana. 

Goods going to Ghana

Father Henry Ussher, whose home Parish is in Ghana, is currently in the United States. Mel Toellner, Gold Crest Distributing founder, met Father Ussher on a tour of Mobility Worldwide in Columbia as he was in the process of putting together one container of items to go to Ghana with the help of Parish members in Pike County, where Father was currently serving. 

Mobility Worldwide quickly agreed to provide 59 mobility carts (built with 100% donated labor), and the Jefferson City diocese missions office paid for the shipping of these containers. It was greatly subsidized by donations of church members and the community in Pike County.

Additional materials were collected that went to a hospital started seven years ago by Father Ussher in his home community and to a new school that he had founded this year. Toellner commented that Father Ussher had told him about his home area and how similar it was to Central Missouri, although poorer. 

“His home diocese is a rural county with about 70% of the people being peasant farmers,” Ussher stated. “It’s a hard life, but a very good life. Most people don’t have much, but everyone is happy. You live within your means, and you appreciate what you get.”

The container that held hospital items took an unexpected last-minute jump as a large amount of critically needed hospital equipment was also donated by McKeown and John Wilbers. When the Gold Crest crew picked up the original mobility device donations, a discussion was held about the potential need for that equipment, and the Wilbers siblings immediately offered to send a lot of much-needed items for the new hospital in rural Ghana. Dr. Wilbers was a devout Catholic, and his sister was actually a nun who served in Ghana. 

“Dad and his sister are sitting together in Heaven right now talking about how cool it is that his items were heading to Ghana,” the Wilbers commented.

Support for Ghana school children

The new school in Ghana got a boost that will allow the school to serve many more students because of a recent event in Mexico Ledger’s coverage area. Volunteers recently picked up hundreds of chairs, desks, and tables from the recently closed Williamsburg and Hatton-McCredie Elementary Schools of the North Callaway School District. 

North Callaway R-1 District Superintendent Kenya Thompson, Ed.D, said the district school board declared most of the former items in the Hatton-McCredie and Williamsburg schools as surplus and other items were deemed unlikely to sell or have very little or no monetary value. At the request of Toellner, the school board voted to make the unsellable items available to Father Ussher. 

“These are things that are no longer useful to us as a school district, and we’re ready for them to be repurposed,” Dr. Thompson said. “They served their purpose in our district and now will be helpful in starting an educational enterprise in Ghana.” 

Jake Seifert, of the Jefferson City Catholic diocese missions office commented, ”We are so grateful for this donation. We are being good stewards of God’s creation for finding good uses for these items. They’re completely functional and they’ll get a lot of use in a country that needs them.” 

All the donated items were put in the two containers going to Ghana. Hundreds of Ghana children will now be able to go to school, and one rural community in Ghana now has more of the equipment needed to serve people in its rural hospital.

“To get the skills to be leaders and entrepreneurs while nurturing ideals, wealth and power must be used correctly,” Ussher stated.

Toellner summarized that he hoped the future would hold further cooperation of Mexico Ledger area school systems, churches, civic organizations, and individuals to help make the world a better place for all of God‘s children.