(Photo courtesy of The Mission Society)
Zambia (MNN) ― A contraption similar to a large tricycle with a wagon on the back has been transforming the lives of people who cannot walk.
Tamlyn Collins wth The Mission Society recently distributed a number of PETs, or Personal Energy Transportation vehicles, in Zambia.
"It's like seeing someone walk out of the darkness into light," she said. "When we bring these PETs to people, some of them crawl across the dust to get into their PETs, and others are carried by their friends and by their family. And when they get into that PET, their faces light up, and they just take off in all directions. It's an incredible sight."
About 100,000 disabled people in Zambia alone are currently on a waiting list to receive a PET.
"This is due to the fact that many people have lost limbs due to the war in Congo," Collins explained. "And also the problem of polio is affecting the people. They still have lost their ability to walk due to polio, even though we are trying to eradicate that right now."
The PETs enable people to do things they would not otherwise be able to do, often things that are very valuable and important. One man told Collins that he would be able to attend church for the first time the following Sunday. Another girl planned to get her education.
"She had never been able to attend school," Collins related. "She was the oldest child in her family, and her family had great hopes for her because she had a lot of natural intelligence. When she received her PET, she told me that she was starting classes right away. And her family was saying that she hoped then to be able to influence her brothers and her sisters to go to school as well."
Each recipient of a PET also had the opportunity to hear the Gospel.
"It is my great joy to be able to pray with individuals who receive PETs, and to be able to tell them that their Christian brothers and sisters in the U.S. and literally all over the world care enough about them to give them a PET," Collins said. "When they receive this prayer, they understand that God has not forgotten them, that they are important to God, that they are precious to God, and that they are precious to other Christian brothers and sisters as well."
It costs $250 to assemble a PET in Africa. You can help.
