Amazing Greats
Interviews with well known actors, authors, artists, athletes, musicians, and business leaders. Authentic conversations about their lives, careers, and how their faith played an important part. Inspiring and uplifting stories of hope, transformation, and triumph. We dig deep for the powerful life stories from some very amazing guests...truly "souls on fire".
Amazing Greats
Faith on Wheels: Nuka Hart and the Mission of Mobility
When Nuka Hart answered God’s call to lead Free Wheelchair Mission, she stepped into a global movement that has transformed more than a million lives — one wheelchair at a time. As CEO, Nuka blends her deep faith with bold leadership to bring hope and mobility to people who might otherwise be forgotten.
In this episode of Amazing Greats, Nuka shares her personal faith journey, the moments that confirmed her calling, and the powerful stories of transformation she’s witnessed in communities around the world. You’ll hear how simple acts of compassion can ripple across nations — and how God can use even the smallest “yes” to move mountains.
It’s a story of vision, perseverance, and the incredible grace of God at work through ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Whether you’re a leader, a dreamer, or someone searching for purpose, Nuka’s story will remind you that faith in motion truly changes the world.
PS I just bought my first wheelchair to provide mobility to someone who desperately needs it. It was easy....for $100 you can to. Just click here.
"Amazing Greats" is a library of interviews with highly successful people who have amazing career and life stories and who share how God has impacted their journey. Hosted by broadcaster Ric Hansen & produced by Klem Daniels. Available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Google and our YouTube Channel.
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Hi everyone, I'm Jim Zorn. Earlier this year, I went to the Dominican Republic with free wheelchair missions. I took a few baseballs that the Mariners gave to me signed by Julio Rodriguez, who's from the Dominican. We went all around delivering free wheelchairs.
SPEAKER_03:Hey there, Rick Hansen here, your host of great with the amazing free wheelchair mission. And it's such a great cause, and I really appreciate your knocking out some time to talk with us on Amazing GREATES. Uh you know, the wonderful thing about your mission is you kind of tell us the whole organization's story in three words. Free wheelchair mission. Okay, that's what it is. But let's dig deeper than that. Uh, first of all, welcome and thank you for being here. This will be fun.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much for having me. Thank you to your subscribers and loyal listeners for caring to listen.
SPEAKER_03:Cool, cool, cool. So is it for daring to listen? Is that what you said?
SPEAKER_01:We all have so many choices and options, right, nowadays. And I and I always thank people for their time because it's so precious.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Well, so this, so uh Freedom Wheelchair mission started 24 years ago. Right. And you weren't involved then. But can you give us a little snippet of uh the founding story uh behind the idea? First of all, I I gotta say that um I thought when I heard the name, and you know, just in my mind, I was thinking, well, you guys buy wheelchairs and then you distribute them. That's your job is distributing them. But it's a whole lot more than that, too. And I want to get into the depth of what it's all about.
SPEAKER_01:How it all works, right? Okay. Well, yes, you're right. It started long before I came on. I just have only been here for eight years, but 24 years ago, it started from our founder, Don Schorndorfer, a biomedical engineer with the biggest, biggest heart and a boatload of humility and love for God, answering a calling that he had to do something with his talents to solve a problem. And it was a problem that he saw when he was on a trip many years before that with his late wife. And the problem was finding somebody on the ground crawling in need of an assistive device like a wheelchair. And I tell people he couldn't unsee that vision that he saw when he was on vacation. And he dedicated some time to acting and doing something about it, using his talents as an engineer to innovate for a solution, to find a wheelchair that could be created in a cost-effective manner, that could be made durably, that could then be sent out as a design to developing countries and potentially governments and other entities to solve the problem of disability where people need a wheelchair and don't have an access to one. The overwhelming problem with wheelchairs in the world is an estimate that the World Health Organization has that there are 80 million people at any given time that need a wheelchair, and the vast majority do not have access. So, what Don was trying to achieve was finding a solution that was cost-effective that would cut into that number. What he didn't realize, and where he answered God's call, was that it was really about him creating the wheelchair and not selling the patent or the design, but creating an organization that would make and use that design, make the wheelchairs, as you said, and then give them out en masse for free to nations, to NGOs, to individuals all over the world that are in need. And that's what we've done from the very beginning. It started with the very first wheelchair we gave out in India. And now, 24 years later, we've given out 1.5 million wheelchairs. We've touched 95 countries. And I tell people that I believe, and I mean, there's some data that potentially shows this that we probably have given out or give out the most wheelchairs per year of any other nonprofit that exclusively focuses on wheelchair distribution. So we're very proud of that. And the way we do it, as you described, is to manufacture the wheelchairs through our two factories that we have, and then to distribute them unassembled in boxes in container shipments to different partners all over the world. Then we train our partners as to how to assemble the wheelchairs, how to assess the recipients of the wheelchairs, and then we tell them it would be our greatest honor and privilege to be able to share the message that the individuals who are receiving these wheelchairs are loved by God and are not to be forgotten, that they are deserving of his love and they shouldn't be cast aside, and that the wheelchair is our privilege to be able to give to them and to their families. And that's how it all works.
SPEAKER_03:We had a we have a pretty massively big God, and he expects us to uh do big things with his gifts, and certainly uh that little seed of a design uh blossomed into this uh amazing manufacturing situation that you're doing today, which is incredible. So was he handling this whole thing by himself back in the day, or did he have a help, or how did that go?
SPEAKER_01:I tell people that free will transmission was kind of like what we told we use the terminology now, startup, right? I don't know if people use the word startup back in, you know, 24 years ago, but it was a glorified startup nonprofit. It started in a man's garage, tinkering with everything from white resin, plastic to uh steel to rubber. And then he gathered friends, people from his church, people that he knew that could help him to do all of the, you know, per se grunt work, all the things that it requires to run a startup. A startup in this case was a nonprofit. So everything from the accounting to how are we going to get people to take interest, how are we gonna ship these things, where can we find a factory that would make these things en masse? And then it flourished from there. Not Don even says that he got a nonprofit for dummies book to learn and educate himself. Like most nonprofit uh or I would say startup leaders, you know, there's a lot that you recognize that you don't know, right? You may start out with a great idea and you feel this calling, but then very soon, especially if you've had a lot of success and growth, you realize all the complexities of the execution and the business model that requires other people to help you to implement. And Don quickly had to add to the team and to add other people to give him that advice. So now, 24 years later, we now have a team of 40 people. We're a full-fledged nonprofit. There have been many iterations of how we do it now that is completely evolved. And we've had many iterations of our wheelchair that are not the same original design any longer. So we can touch on that. But the nucleus of who we are has not changed. So, as you said, it's a free wheelchair mission. And the driving reason, the motivation is that we're motivated by God to do this work, to serve other people that need to be lifted up in their hearts and in their bodies with a wheelchair. And we give them a device that is of good sound quality, but made specifically for the developing world in the way that it's designed to handle and withstand the terrain and the variety of things that you see in those countries.
SPEAKER_03:I was hoping you were going to touch on that because that's that's a significant part. It's not something you can just go down to your local uh wheelchair store and get. It's something special for these special environments that they get placed into. So that's great. So now, how do you find uh ways to get these to the people that need them most? I mean, what's what's the the structure that you have in place to distribute?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we have relied on, we learn this over time. So this, I don't think, was the first, it wasn't the first idea, right? Again, start up with an idea and then you learn as you go. And over the years, we learned that the best model for us was to rely on partners on the ground in the countries where we work. Some of those partners could be what we call non-governmental organizations, so NGOs. In our model, it could be considered to be a non-for-profit that's not affiliated with the government. And then some of them are churches, some of them are clinics or hospitals, but they're all focused on serving the people in their country. Some of them work in multiple countries, right? They may be headquartered in the United States or in Europe, but they do work in places where there's great need. And they are the ones that partner with us contractually to receive our wheelchairs and then to assess and find the people that would be seated in our wheelchairs. So they are on the ground, they're either finding those individuals through lists that are waiting, long waiting lists and clinics or hospitals of individuals who've been waiting for that kind of a resource. It could just be ground from the baseline, grounds up uh communication within a small community like a church or a rotary club or alliance club that you see in these other countries, even not just the United States, where people just know that that man, that woman down the street had an accident, had some sort of disability that creeped up, or just birthed a child that will not be able to walk and will need a wheelchair eventually. And from there, they are able to build a list that then can be served of individuals who will get our wheelchairs when they arrive.
SPEAKER_03:Today on Amazing Greats, I'm talking with Nuka Hart, the CEO of Free Wheelchair Mission, who's bringing mobility and hope to people around the world. There's no way that it seems like there because there's a demand of 80 million people, you're always backed up. I mean, is there always super demand for everything that comes out of the factory?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, the way we do our work is based upon, like I said, those partnerships. And those partnerships each have their limitations of capacity. So even though they may have high need in their country, they may only have so much that they can handle and to distribute. They may only have so many volunteers or staff, or just the logistical complication of not having enough warehousing to store the wheelchairs. Or in a place like I visited this summer in Brazil, where we were visiting in the Amazon, they're limited by climate and the weather, right? There's this finite amount of time in that specific area of that country where they can even distribute. So while the numbers of populations might be high, it really does require for the capacity to be high on the ground to actually get deliver the product and to do it safely. So it's not like distributing loaves of bread per se, right? Which is extremely important work. You have to feed people, right? But you don't have to consider as much, unless they have a gluten allergy, about um things like we do in the wheelchair world around did we measure them? Did we size them correctly? Did we teach them the exercises they need to do to be safe in the wheelchair? Did we consider if the wheelchair is the right solution for them? Are we going to do more harm by putting them in a wheelchair as opposed to encouraging them to use their walker? And is the wheelchair going to last them for a long time if they're five years old and they're probably going to grow, right? From five years old to 15 to 25. So those are all things that we train to and we have to worry about with our partners and why also there's a you know a capacity limitation and time limitation, how it's executed. But the prayer is that we will, you know, in get enough support and be able to grow the capacity with our partners so that we're always increasing how many wheelchairs we give out and supplying and supporting these individuals so that we create a sustainable, you know, expectation of when the wheelchairs will arrive so that the waiting lists are shorter, even though we know the need will always be there, but they they know that they can expect to receive.
SPEAKER_03:Gotcha. Well, you know, I have a special uh heart for what you're doing because I am involved in our church uh with an event called Night to Shine. Are you familiar with?
SPEAKER_01:I'm very familiar with that. This is the Tim Tebow Foundation. And Tim Tebow actually spoke at one of our events many years ago. And the Night to Shine is an initiative that one of our distribution partners in Haiti, based in Kapaisia in the north of Haiti, does every single year. And I actually almost participated in that event. It was when was it? It was in 2024, just last year in February. And I missed it because of the unrest that happened in the country that caused me, it was a whole explosion of problems, as you may have heard, to have to leave there for my safety. And I missed the event. It's a fantastic event that really in what the way we are part of it is because the people that are our wheelchair beneficiaries, the children, get dressed up and get to have the beautiful experience of being highlighted for their beauty and get to feel like the center of attention with their TRs and scepters, like a prom, right? And um, it's wonderful because it shows a whole community that people with disabilities should be heralded, they have their own inner and outer beauty, and they should not be marginalized but made to feel special. So I just love that event.
SPEAKER_03:You're making me tear up over here. It's like um, because it's so special for us, you know, and and as you've described, um, once people understand what it is, this night of you know wonderful fun, um, everybody wants to be involved. Yeah. And it's like this community event that it's it's it's contagious.
SPEAKER_01:Even though I didn't get to go, I it was so much fun in the days leading up to it to help make the tiaras for the kids. And I got to see, you know, what they had done the year before and seeing the kids look at themselves in the mirror and never having seen themselves in that way, right? Dressed up a little bit and looking outwardly more beautiful than they expected that they would ever look. It's just it's amazing. I love that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. So let's jump into your story because you know you've been uh you've been leading this um charge for uh the last eight years. Is that what you said? So um how is it first of all? You're you're you're let's go in the way back machine.
SPEAKER_01:Oh boy, no, no telling ages, please.
SPEAKER_03:So so tell us um childhood. Did you grow up in a Christian household?
SPEAKER_01:I did. I grew up in a Christian immigrant household. I'm first generation American. I was born on the East Coast in New York. My parents immigrated from Haiti. We talked about Haitian Night to Shine, but that's where they came from. They met in the States. They had me in New York. They came to the United States like most immigrants do for opportunity. And they became citizens and had me, and they were both in the medical profession. My parents are both doctors. And so it's kind of wild that I'm now working for an organization that deals with patients and mobility issues. It's as close as I could get to being uh in their in their world. And they're both passed on now, but I did grow up in a Christian household, and I, you know, it was it is part of a lot of the Haitian culture. I know there are other, you know, types of faith in Haiti, predominantly Catholic in Haiti. There is a part of uh also Protestant that has grown over the years, but I grew up from the very beginning going to church every Sunday. Uh, I was baptized, I did all that stuff. And my mom died when I was really young. My dad did since then remarry, but because of that trauma, I believe that my faith actually grew stronger because when you go through something as a child, you have to grow up a lot faster. And I feel like the growing up process for those of us that have been, you know, have had faith from a young age or grew up in the church, part of our process of growing up is, you know, being introduced to faith structure like church or Bible study or vacation Bible study or prayers or scripture by our parents. And then making a conscious decision at some point, there's a fork in the road that happens, right? Are you going to do what they said and follow what they were teaching? Or are you gonna go in a different direction? And that other direction you go in, is it more religious, more ingrained in faith, or is it completely different, right? There is a point where it becomes more about you know your own choice and not the technically the indoctrination of your parents, right? Which and so for me, that process happened earlier because I believe I went through something. And I think for a lot of us who don't go through something as a young age, you do that through your normal cycle of growing. It could be when you reach university or you have your first child, or you start to just leave and cleave to adulting, right? So I've always had faith in the Lord, I've always held on to certain principles. I found myself on my knees from a very young age, trying to figure out why things happened to me the way they did, and holding on to words like hope and you know, trying to not be anxious about my situation. And I think that's what's carried me through to this day now. I think when you go through a trauma when you're a young child, it's can completely change your trajectory of your life. But I believe that my faith sustained me. And I also think it's a little bit of the way I'm wired as a Haitian woman or Haitian descent. Um, it's the way I was raised to be very resilient and to not only think about myself, that there are bigger problems, bigger issues out there. And it's what I think that is a trajectory that I was on as well with my career, that it's not all about me. It's about the work that I'm doing and what I can do to give back using my talent.
SPEAKER_03:If I'm hearing you right, so there was it a gradual kind of maturing, or was there a pivotal moment? Was there a time where you said, you know, now I know this is real, now I know Jesus personally. Some people have that, others not necessarily. They just kind of into it. What was your situation?
SPEAKER_01:You know, when you lose your mom when you're seven years old, you kind of I mean, I a lot of people can't even fathom that, right? But there's definitely a moment of why God did this happen to me, right? Why me, why me, why me, which is I think a nor normal inclination for any child as I look at it as an adult. And so there definitely was that. And then there was a lot of fear, right? Because I came to face something that really roots us in our faith, which is our mortality. And what does it mean to then think beyond the to the now and the earth? It's about the forever and the everlasting, which is your relationship with God, right? And so I was forced to think about that earlier because here I am faced with a person who's never supposed to go away, my mom going away and in a weird way, right? Like, you know, she had a disease, something happened, and now she's gone, this vibrant person. So I think that was a pivotal moment, but it was still encased in some fear and unsurety. There was another pivotal moment for me, which was when I had my first child, and I would, I remember I had just birthed my child, and I'm sitting there in the uh hospital with the little, I guess, a little bed they give you. At the time, it was like this clear, uh, kind of like a bassinet box, and the baby's next to you, and it was at some ungodly hour of like four in the morning, and I'm looking at this baby. I'm sitting in the in the bed, and my husband at the time was either snoring on the futon next to me in the hospital room or gone, and I'm just looking at the baby, and I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I'm responsible for this child. And then I remember tears streaming down my face and me realizing what my mom must have felt like leaving, knowing that she was dying and knowing that she was leaving behind two children. And that's when God and I had another pivotal conversation about mortality and what I was here to do and him being here. And it was earth-shattering to me because again, backwards to seven years old, why me, why God did this happen? To now I understand like it's not about me. This woman who was my mom had to leave me behind. So it's really about what happened to her and the reality that she had to go through. Oh my goodness, why Lord, is this happening? I'm having to leave behind two children. Because then I got to see it from her eyes. And I also got to have Thanksgiving in that moment as well, of thanking God for bringing me to a moment to be able to experience that. Because I could have never had a child, right? But I got to experience the beauty of having a children. And there are other couple of moments, but that's when I recognized that I really need him. I, if I'm gonna be a good mom and I'm gonna survive in this world for this child, because my goal then became, I became I am going to last more than seven years into this child's life, right? I need to pray to him all the time because I need to make it for this child, because I don't want for this child to deal with what I dealt with in terms of not having my mom there. And so that was a huge moment for me. There are others, even for me coming to Free Will Tremission, the day that I decided to, you know, go forth and answer his call to be in this capacity as leading the organization. So I could go on and on. You don't have all the hours in the day, Rick, to talk about my faith journeys. Faith journeys are there, they're never a uh there's no end. They're you're constantly working on them, right?
SPEAKER_03:We're talking with Nuka Hart, a leader whose faith is driving a mission to transform lives one wheelchair at a time. Tell me, uh, how old's your is a son, right? Was your child or son? How old is he now?
SPEAKER_01:26.
SPEAKER_03:26. How cool is that, huh? Well, I that so in your spiritual journey, um, there are certain practices that ground you, that keep you connected with Jesus. For you in your life, what what are those spiritual practices that are a part of your life?
SPEAKER_01:My number one practice, number one practice, and it requires a lot of discipline, is praying with my husband every morning. I do two things. It's like a very personal thing here that I'm sharing.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know why I'm sharing this because I don't really go to your job.
SPEAKER_01:So I actually I'm the early riser, and now that we're empty nesters, you know, we don't have to go and bottle feed or, you know, pick up a baby and change a diaper, right? So in the quiet of the morning, I usually wake up and I thank God before he wakes up and I look at him because I thank him for him, right? I thank the Lord for my husband and I thank the Lord for allowing me to wake up. I have more awareness of what it, the value of waking up and the importance of that than I think a lot of people do because of what I went through as a child. And I identified that way earlier. Some people can think of it as morbid, but I think of it as a Thanksgiving. So that's the first thing I do. It's just a very, it's a very simple, thank you, God, you know. And then the next thing I do is I wake him up, you know, and we assess like what our day is going to be. And as long as we don't have to dash, dash, dash, I try my very best to spend at least five to ten minutes with him praying. And we go through a specific type of prayer that we do. And it's a lot of intentions that we're speaking in terms of needs for others in our family that we know are struggling or dealing with something, our children, our extended family, and our friends, and for each other. So that's something that I feel is a constant. And I feel really bad when I miss it or when we're in different time zones and I miss it. But that is one of the the biggest practices that I have integrated into my life that grounds me.
SPEAKER_03:So your husband's alarm clock for starters, which is one.
SPEAKER_01:Whether he likes it or not.
SPEAKER_03:Whether he likes it or not, which is great. So what happens? You travel a lot. So what happens on those uh those mornings?
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes we call each other, you know, and sometimes we do the prayer at another time of the day. I've been known to pray with him while I'm driving somewhere. We ask each other, is there something you want me to pray about? And that sort of thing. And we're pretty good about it. You know, we have our favorite scripture, of course, that we mutually love. And this is my second marriage and his as well. So I think there's something very beautiful about that too, because we have a deeper appreciation for the fact that the Lord is about multiple chances, right? And hopefully you don't have to do that in marriage because the idea of marriage is for it to not be a multiple chance giving thing that you do it for life. But when the circumstances bear to be that, that he does give you that grace is a big deal. So we don't take it for granted. What's the scripture that it's Philippians 4, 6?
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:It's about not being anxious. It's all about it ties together what I was talking about before. It's not, it's it's about not being anxious and putting and giving all your petitions for Thanksgiving and your requests to God.
SPEAKER_03:So challenges. Uh uh, we've you you've already explained a couple of them. Uh, what other challenges? Maybe uh your career challenges, things where along the way uh it seemed like things weren't going the right way. Yeah. And you weren't you're tempted to think that God wasn't listening somehow. Tell me about one of those situations.
SPEAKER_01:Oh goodness. I think all leaders have that, or all people in any, you don't have to be in a leadership capacity. You wonder, am I in the right place? Should I be doing something else? Is it grass greener somewhere else? You know, am I feeling valued? You definitely have those inner voices, right? And your career is so critical, right? It's the thing that you do in the majority of your awake hours, your alert hours when you're alive on this planet. So you better be doing something that you enjoy or that you find to be meaningful. Uh, I think that for me, there definitely was, you know, I was working at another organization before that I felt I was making a big impact with, but I was a little antsy. I wasn't sure about whether or not it was time for me to stay. Or go.
SPEAKER_03:That was United Way, right?
SPEAKER_01:I had a leadership position. I felt that I had an amazing team, an amazing, amazing team. I loved my team. It's one of those things that you say, Am I am I happy? Am I not? You know, and there were definitely ups and downs there. But what was tugging at my heart was the fact that I wasn't doing enough. You know, I felt like I had shown and demonstrated that I could raise funds and do that well for the initiative where I was the areas where I was living. But I, because of my heritage, felt a bit guilty that I wasn't doing enough for Haiti and other countries around the world that I felt were suffering more. And so when I was recruited for free will transmission, I kind of felt like I had a potential to do something more through free will transmission. I thought, well, maybe this is it. But honestly, Rick, it was wheelchairs. What did I know about wheelchairs? Right. And how come I hadn't heard this organization before? And why would they want me? And also their headquarters was so far from where I lived. Why would I go there? And I still went on the interview. There's a lot of reasons why I did that that I won't go into. It's a whole other story. But by the time I finished the grueling interview, I walked away after kind of being voluntole to go on this interview, wanting the job and passionately wanting the job. Like the minute I got in the car, I said to myself, Oh God, what am I going to do? I mean, I said it out loud. Oh God, what am I going to do? I really want this job. I'm sitting in the car by myself, going up the freeway back home. And within 20 minutes, 15 minutes, something like that, the recruiter called me and said, They want you to come back. When you can you come back? And I knew, I knew it. I knew it even before he called. I said, you know, that was a really hard interview, but I just had this feeling they want me. And what am I going to do? Like, I did not expect that I was leaving this job now. And it was really interesting because here I am feeling that feeling of, well, you know, what should I do? Is this right? Am I not sure? Blah, blah, blah. And God just laid it out for me in this mysterious way, unexpected way. And he kind of forced my hand and made it abundantly clear. And then I gave tons of notice. I think I gave like two months, three months notice, something like that, because this was all in like November or something. And I started February 1st, eight years ago. And here I am. And the complexity of leading an organization that was founder-led, which a lot of people do, right? They take over for a founder. And it's not easy to do that, right? And I knew it from the beginning that that's what I was taking on, has had its ups and downs.
SPEAKER_03:Rick Hansen here on Amazing Greats with Nuka Hart, who shares her journey of following God's calling to serve the most vulnerable around the world. So you were the first CEO. You took over for Don.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I took over for Don. Technically, there were two other executive directors preceding me, and they didn't last for a long time for one reason or another. They were there for a short time. And then Don went back into leadership for the organization for a couple of years. And, you know, he said to me, I was a little nervous about bringing somebody else in again. You know, I knew all of that going in, which I really, really, really appreciate. It's the worst thing when you get a job, you take on a job, and nobody tells you, you know, all of the things behind the door, behind door number one, two, three, and four, right? And so I was told that it would be new. It would be new for the team, it would be new for Don, and it would be new for our supporters to have somebody other than Don leading. And also, people would be a little skittish about whether or not it was going to work because it didn't always work before. So that was a big undertaking. And Don is a fantastic person. So also bringing on a new individual with new ideas, a woman, you know, coming from a different background, all of these things could also be complex, right? But I've had from the beginning his trust. And yes, we've gone through our ups and downs, but I've had his trust, the leadership's trust in terms of our board of directors. And over time, I've, you know, built the trust of the team. I hope I've earned it. And I hope I've earned the trust of our supporters. And I hope I'm showing them that what I called before the nucleus of what free will transmission is, the essence of it is still important and vital for us to maintain. While we may hone it a little bit differently, and we may evolve in some regards to be more efficient or cost effective or embracing the times we're in, keeping true to the values and maintaining the integrity of the mission has been my personal mission and my promise to Don.
SPEAKER_03:Stepping back just one step here, because I'm I'm always intrigued by uh how God speaks to people. And you said that was a that was a clear indication at that time was is there an audible voice for you, or is it just like a knowing? Uh how do you experience the call of God?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I have an art background. I studied art, so I have a lot of visuals in my brain. Visuals, as they say my first language in French, tableaus, right? Tableau. Like I see things in imagery in the way I think. My husband tells me, Your dreams are so colorful. You know, when I tell him about a dream I have. So when I think about what God says to me, I don't think about it just in words, but I think of it in like paintings and pictures.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And I sometimes look for signs. I used to like even look at an image of my mom, and I used to say, God, move her eyes so that I could know whether or not it's and of course the eyes would never move, right? But yeah, I mean, I do I do have the audibles, and I told you about one when I was in that in that uh car coming up the freeway, and I feel like it was very clear, and I was having a conversation saying, Oh god, oh god, I really want this job. And then all of a sudden the phone rings, right? And I felt like you know, you can call it a sign, you could, you know, you can call it that God made the phone ring, you know, whatever you want to say, every people will poke at that. But I'll tell you, I was not expecting to work at a wheelchair, predominantly wheelchair-focused nonprofit in Orange County in headquarters and touching global, having a global reach that I never expected. God did that, right? Yeah, and I certainly wasn't expecting that the very first wheelchair that I gave out, I can tell you that story.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Was in Haiti. And I, you know, people would say, Well, of course you gave it out in Haiti, it's your like country of heritage. And I would say, actually, I was supposed to give out my first wheelchair in Vietnam because at the time that was our number one country that we were distributing in. And that was the plan. Like after I had been here for 10 months or something, nine months, and sinking my teeth into the mission that I would finally go out in the field and see the work. And we planned the trip. And I can't recall what happened, but something happened. We had to cancel the trip. Something with the partner, maybe it was weather. I completely I'm blanking. And I was a little bit dismayed and frustrated. Oh, darn, I needed to see this partner. And I remember meeting with Don. We were meeting, you know, one-on-one one day, and he says, When are you gonna get out there? When are you gonna get out there and see the work? And I said, I don't know. This trip for Vietnam, it got canceled and blah, blah, blah. And he looked at me, he's like, just get on a plane and go to another country then. And I just looked at him, I said, Oh, right, I'm leading this organization. I guess I could kind of do that. And he said, Where do you want to go? Why don't you go to Haiti? That's where, you know, and that's how it happened. And so I went to Haiti and we organized this trip for me to have a solo trip to meet our amazing partner, Food for the Poor, there in the Capitol. At the time, it was a lot safer than it is today. And my first wheelchair I gave out was to a boy who had suffered tragically the loss of his leg in the earthquake that happened in 2010. So now I'm getting to him in 2018, eight years later, where he had waited for eight years to receive a wheelchair. He had an amputation, he had been walking around using crutches exclusively for crawling, right? Dragging himself. So they lived in a really you know hard part of the capital. And here I am seeing this as the first child, I first person I get to put in a wheelchair. And it just was another God moment because I'm like, oh my gosh, if my parents had immigrated, I could, I could have been his mother, right? Like, what would be the difference between me and that mother, right? Not much. He came home from school like my kids do at four o'clock, and then this earthquake hit, and boom, this his life changed. There's no difference between an earthquake happening in California, where I live, and this mom in Haiti. And the big difference only is the lack of resource and the challenge that there was in the infrastructure in that country. So it was a beautiful moment for me. And then I went to visit my dear sweet cousin and his wife, who live there. And I remember showing them the photo of this young man that day. And they asked me, where were you when you gave this wheelchair? And I explained it. And his wife, I'll never forget it. She says, Wait, I know that boy. I said, What? She says, I see him going to and from school all the time because it's on my way to work. And she described him to tea, and it was just so affirming. And then they affirmed where our, you know, where what are the work our partner's doing there? So it's just, it was a full circle moment. I had such pride that I was able to demonstrate the impact that we're making in a visual way for them, for something that they had suffered trauma as well in having been a part of that time of the earthquake in Haiti. And I think, I think they were proud of me that I did that work. And yeah, that was a big moment.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and now there's uh 1.5 million of those moments around the world. And you're in charge. You're the one that's kind of making it all happen.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I will say you and your team, let's say that 1 million percent, Rick. Because I tell them it's not about me and it's not about Don. I tell them all the time. Some of them I roll me, I know. I tell them all the time, it's not about the missionary, it's about the mission. We need to work together and we need to do our work so well that we aren't the entity that's necessary for the work to take place. So my job is to bring them all together, to figure out ways strategically for them to work effectively, to challenge, to push, but I am reliant on them to execute, to come up with ideas, to push me a little, right? And to make it happen. I need to know that that's happening and that I'm not required for that to happen. I'm not doing my job well if I'm necessary.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. That's a great uh that's a great idea. I hadn't heard it put quite that way before, but that's incredible. So of the team, how many I mean, is everybody Christian or are they kind of Christian-ish, or how does all of that fit into technically?
SPEAKER_01:I have no idea.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So we're not a church, we're faith-based, so we do not have a litmus test or requirement, and we can't legally for Christianish, Christian, not Christian, but everybody has their eyes wide open that our mission is faith-based, that we have a motivation to do this work, that is Jesus. It's in our faith mission statement. And we're very transparent with people about that in job descriptions, and we ask them if they're comfortable with that. And we also pray in meetings and we pray over our wheelchair recipients and we work with partners that are very religious, and we obviously attract people in our supporter base and stakeholders that are very religious.
SPEAKER_03:Today on Amazing Greats, I'm talking with Nuka Hart, the CEO of Free Wheelchair Mission, who's bringing mobility and hope to people around the world. You do that as a group, so the the the team is all together in those scenarios?
SPEAKER_01:When we distribute wheelchairs, you mean?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, when you you you pray for your your uh wheelchair recipients. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So there's lots of different ways we pray at free wheelchair mission. We have uh let's call it the modern way of praying, which is we have an instant messaging channel on Slack where we have a prayer group going and we post our prayers in the Slack channel and share. It could be a prayer for a recipient that we hear about, a distribution partner is facing a challenge, a team member that needs prayer or a praise report. We have our board of directors that pray together once a month to pray for all of these things I just listed and more. They are required to be Christians. It is a requirement of our board that they sign a statement of faith. And then in meetings, you know, depending on the meeting, right? It could be a small team meeting, a leadership meeting, it could be a group meeting. We'll break off in prayer. And sometimes we are praying for we, you know, in the prayer, we mention our wheelchair recipients, but we're also praying for our partners. We thank God for the country we're in, we thank God for our safety because we're going in all these weird places, right? So there's lots of prayers, and sometimes it's very, please God, let the resources come so we can keep doing this work.
SPEAKER_03:And where do the resources come from primarily? Is it individuals or big corporations or yeah, we have a variety of places that they come from, different segments.
SPEAKER_01:I'm really proud that the majority of our funds come from individuals. I think I'm proud of that because we're less dependent on principally institutional giving, which could come and go depending on economies or changes with the wind politically, that sort of thing. So we do depend a lot on households, individuals, but we do have a core of support from corporations, from churches, and from foundations or private foundations. We've we don't receive any government grants or government funds. That's not new, that's just been the way it's been. It's been our little policy, and I'm kind of grateful. Because then with the wind flowing one way or the other, you don't have to be dependent on that to a point where it's detrimental to your plans if it changes. And our supporters are all over the world, and that's a beautiful thing, predominantly, obviously, in the United States, because of where we started, but uh we have support from all over the world.
SPEAKER_03:You know what I love about um the way you generate revenue and a lot of it and the way and what you desire to is the fact that uh it is so accessible to anyone to be a participant uh when you consider that a wheelchair costs in the neighborhood of a hundred bucks. So everybody's got a hundred bucks to put somebody in a wheelchair. And what a great, wonderful thing to feel proud about for a donor.
SPEAKER_01:And even if they don't have a hundred bucks, they may have a dollar, right?
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_01:And I tell people all the time I would prefer to have a million people giving me one dollar than to have one man or woman giving me a million dollar check. Because if I can move one million people to give me one dollar, that means one million people cured enough to part with that one dollar for me and what I'm trying to achieve and what I'm just introducing them to. And then it won't be about me, it's about the mission.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, perfect. And so that's at this magic moment, we should say, how how do we do that? How do we do that?
SPEAKER_01:How do you do that? Well, you know, there's this thing called the internet these days.
SPEAKER_03:I love that internet. It's so good.
SPEAKER_01:So I tell people, look us up and see if you like us, right? Read our stories, watch our videos, go to our website, go to our social media pages. And when you go there, I'm convicted that you're going to feel tugged at the heart and motivated to give or do something. And so they should then act with that and go to that donate button and give, or feel inspired enough to engage with us in a different way as well to see how they can volunteer, participate in an event, and do more. Introduce us to someone or just learn about our new ideas like our new wheelchair that we've just launched or anything else.
SPEAKER_03:Well, Nuka, this has been absolutely an inspiring and wonderful story, and the time that you've spent, and the energy that you put into it, and the glow in your face when you talk about what you're doing is just magical. And I really appreciate the time. But we ran out of time. You said 40 minutes. I hope we can talk 40 past 40 minutes, right?
SPEAKER_01:That's quick. I love it. Thanks so much, folks.
SPEAKER_03:What an uplifting conversation with Luca Hart. Her story reminds us how powerful faith and action can be. The website address to find out more about Free Wheelchair Missions is www.freewheelchairmissions.org. Thanks for hanging out with us on AmazingGreats, and we'll see you next time with another story of God at work.
