SABA MARCOS

By Mary Jane Bogle |

Photo by Eva Toscos

Saba Marcos, owner of Ethiopian Food Catering and founder of Agape Mobility Ethiopia, has a passion for people who need wheelchairs in her native country of Ethiopia. In fact, she has recently returned to Fort Wayne from a trip to Ethiopia, where she hand-delivered over 800 custom wheelchairs to those in need.

It’s a trip she’s been making since 2011. Her 2023 expedition marked the delivery of nearly 3,000 total wheelchairs through those years. Marcos focuses largely on rural areas where disabled persons face stigma and superstition.

These aren’t just any wheelchairs, either. For Marcos, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution. Instead, she works closely with ministers of health throughout the country. These ministers identify those in need of assistance, giving Marcos details that help her create a custom solution for each person she visits.

Marcos then collaborates with local partners, such as Lutheran Life Villages, St. Henry’s Thrift Shop, Parkview Health, and private individuals, along with partners throughout the world, to collect wheelchairs that will work for those specific children, teens, and adults. Agape Mobility takes these donated wheelchairs and makes any adjustments needed through periodic wheelchair repair and maintenance workshops, where volunteers clean and repair the wheelchairs to get them ready for shipment overseas.

The mission is personal for Marcos, who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After contracting polio as a child, she gained the ability to walk only after several costly surgeries and countless therapies. At 14, Marcos came to the United States with her family and began a new life.

When she returned to her native country two decades later, Marcos was shocked to see large numbers of poor and disabled people who were begging outside the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and in city centers in the nation’s capital. Marcos knew these people faced a cruel stigma and were often considered cursed, as though their disabilities were a form of punishment.

It was a stigma she felt called to change, and she has fulfilled that calling by personally delivering every single wheelchair. “I give each wheelchair with my own hands,” she said. “When I give the wheelchair, I talk with them to learn their stories, hug them, sit with them. I feel their pain and share God’s love. The more I go, the more I am motivated to give.”

Kevan Chandler of We Carry Kevan recently spoke at an Agape Mobility fundraising banquet in Fort Wayne and recognizes the value of Marcos’ personal investment.

“It’s one thing to give someone a wheelchair to lift their body off the ground,” said Chandler. “It’s another to look into their eyes while they are still on the ground, to join them there and really see them for their value, regardless of their condition, and joyfully give them dignity in spades as you lift their soul off the ground, too.”

Marcos’ big goal is to provide 100,000 mobility devices by 2030, and to open a wheelchair factory in Ethiopia. You can learn more about her work and discover how you can get involved at agapemobilityethiopia.org. a