Hope, Mobility and Freedom Delivered to Chuuk

Humanitarian Missionaries Ronald K. Honey and Andy and Roylene Schnebly from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We welcomed them to Chuuk on a rainy and humid day so they had a wonderful introduction to what the next three days were going to be like.

The beautiful lei's they are wearing are not only beautiful, but smell wonderful too. The Chuukese women make them with the local flowers and fruit. It is a Chuukese culture ritual to put one on your guest.

A container with wheelchairs, walkers and crutches arrived the prior week for the Chuukese people. The economic situation of most of the local people is such that only a select few can afford the cost of a new wheelchair. It is a great blessing that our church donates them here.

Doctor Anamarie needed help getting the wheelchairs from the container to use for training. So we had to round up our Michetiw Elders Obray and Rainey and also the Zone Leaders, Elder Allred and Jones to help get the equipment out of the container. They both drive pickup trucks and they all have strong young muscles.

The Humanitarian missionaries spent 3 days training and teaching the doctors, nurses and health dept about wheel chairs. How to evaluate the patients, how to use the wheelchairs correctly and also they taught them how to take care of the wheel chairs so they will last longer in the environment here. It was all very informative and worked out well.

Here they are learning how to evaluate and move patients to a wheelchair.

This is Herman Walters. He is a pioneer in Chuuk. He served as a missionary, taught and trained many missionaries the Chuukese language and culture. He was a Branch President and a District President for 18 years. Herman lives across the street from the Mwan Branch on the island of Weno. Currently he has 34 people living with him. He is diabetic now and half of one of his feet was amputated. He does walk but it is painful and makes his legs hurt. He is one of the greatest fisherman around. He went to Salt Lake in the 90's to do translation for the Temple endownment so when our Chuukese people go to the Temple it is his voice they hear on their head phones. We really wanted to make sure Herman was taken care of. He is a very special man and means a lot to the people here in Chuuk. We had him checking out the wheelchairs, but he is pretty strong so for now he is going to use a walker.

For many years, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been actively involved in humanitarian relief and development activities throughout the world.