Mango Mama

“God, if the entire world is from your hands, what you have made, what can I possibly give you to show my gratitude?  I can only give you my praise.”

In a country where poverty expands my capacity to grasp the reality of what a desperate person may do when desperation means death or life…. like when a mama looks at her children as a burden rather than a blessing.  When a man threatens a life of another when he loses his job…

There is a reason I am not writing the story and God is.  He knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all means.

Is God still a good God?  Is God still in the slums where naked toddlers roam about, unsupervised- where a mama beats her child so badly that she goes unconscious?  Is God in the prisons where innocent men and women reside, falsely accused?  In a world pocketed with pain? What about the crumbling marriage or a terminally ill child?

How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? To more-God places?  How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy?  How do I give up crippling fear for courageous faith?

In places where it seems impossible to believe God’s goodness – that God surely cannot know or care about this place -  I turn to His word, which I believe is true and relevant to every culture and person.  I flip open to Romans 8.  I read “And we know that God works for the good of those who love him…” and “if God is for us, then who is against us?”.

Sometimes we are so trapped that it forces us to only look up.  There are hard questions to ask here but there are awesome answers and they only come in the Name of a God who knows so much more than my broken, little brain can wrap around.  There are moms who love their children and work so hard to provide for them.   There are children’s homes here who take the rejected, abused children and nurture them to be God-fearing men and women.

God is faithful.  Even in the tough.  Taking the tough to become seeing-through-to-God  places is possible, but not alone.  He is the only one that can help us SEE.

*Italics emphasis placed on Ann Voskamp’s “10,000 Gifts” quotes.

She leaves her home at dark, before sunrise. It’s 5am. Tiptoeing around her 5 sleeping children, she splashes water on her face to wake her up from the little sleep she had the night before, due to several drunken fights men had outside her home throughout the night.

She walks with 2 friends today. She sometimes has to walk alone. Six kilometers to this forest. This is area one. Areas two, three and four give and take 2 kilometers more. She has to get food for her children to eat today. So she presses forward.

She takes the 60 cents she saved from yesterday’s labor and gives it to the Forester. He controls the coming and going of firewood from his forest. She takes the bundle of firewood, wraps it in strips of cloth and hoists it up on her head, preparing for the journey home. It’s 12 noon.

Steady, strong, slowly, Mama balances the bundle atop her sturdy frame as she steps 1, 2, 3. . . This is daily life -to sell this bundle for $1.20/day and save half to feed her family.

She is a firewood carrier.

If it is the dry season, she can afford to make a second trip. But it is now raining, and she will only be able to do one.

“How do you survive,” I ask her.

Giggle. BIG sigh.

“Only God knows”

A friend of mine recently told me about HopeMob, a really great organization that unites generous strangers together to help out various causes and people who really need help.

Jua Project’s story was accepted to their website and we are currently on their front page.  We are trying to raise awareness and funding for 3 sewing machines and 32 chickens for our moms as we support them in becoming self-sustainable.

Currently we are #9.  We are trying to get one of the top 4 spots and we are SO close.

Please help us and PLEASE spread the word.  If we raise $432, we are able to supply our moms in a next step in sustainability.

It’s free to help us.  Here is what I need you guys to do!

1.  Go to www.hopemob.org and set up and account (super easy, free)

2.  Activate your account and you will have 1,000 free points.  “Boost” our story to help us reach the top 4 spots so we may be featured as their cover story.  THAT’S IT!!

Will you please help us by doing this and tell your friends, too?

We are also on Twitter!  Follow @JuaProject to get all the latest details on what is happening with our moms.

Our group is getting bigger by the day.  It has been a journey of taking blind steps of faith and watching God provide.  I’m so excited to introduce you to some new moms that have joined our group the past couple of weeks.

Meet Florence.  Florence is a former firewood carrier, grandmother to dozens of kids and lives in one of the slums in Kitale.  She offers a strong dynamic of leadership and spiritual encouragement to the other moms in our group. She arrives every day with a smile on her face and leads the time of prayer and worship every morning before our day begins.

Meet Gladys.  Gladys and Florence know eachother as they are neighbors in the slum.  Gladys, a mother to 6 children, also worked as a firewood carrier for several years until just a few weeks ago, she was attacked by robbers and was severely injured on her chest and legs and could  not walk.  Bridget knew Gladys from her previous trip to Kenya in 2011 and found her ‘by chance’ just after her attack.  Bridget started caring for Gladys’ injuries and praying over her each day.  I’m not telling the story well…but you can read it here and be certain that we serve a GREAT GOD who knows all of our needs.  We rejoice in the miracle of healing that comes when we have faith and pray in the name of Jesus.

Meet Rosemary.  Rosemary has quite the story to tell.  Both she and her husband have taken in children who have been abandoned for various reason, around the Kitale region and Northern Kenya for several years.  Together, they ‘adopted’ over 14 children.  In 2008, Rosemary’s husband was caught in a bank robbery during the post election violence and was murdered.  Still, this has not stopped her from trusting the Lord to provide for her and her children.  Rosemary has a nice space where her kids can study for school and sleep on matresses.  She also has a cow and a few turkeys.  Rose feeds her children beans and maize 2 of the 3 meals each day. 

 One month ago, Rosemary took in her 18th child, Zeporah.  We are unsure of Zeporah’s age, however we feel a good guess is around 3 or 4 years old.  She was found just outside of Kitale, completely abandoned.  Her father was found but denied her and Rosemary went through the process to foster Zeporah and call her “daughter”. 

Z is extremely malnourished.  When she was found, her face, hands and feet were extremely bloated and her hair was grey and falling out.  Today, just a mere 30 days later, we see Zeporah running, speaking, trusting her caregiver, Mama Rose.  Her hair is starting to grow back.

Rose just completed her first week with us.  She texted me yesterday saying how thankful for Jua she is and the income it provides her family.  She was able to take 2 of her daughters into the clinic yesterday to have much-needed medical procedures done that she did not have the means to pay for.  The cost of the proceedure = $10.

Zeporah is a unique baby in that she needs a special diet for her body to process nutrients.  Severe malnutrition causes our organs to fail and not have the ability to process foods the way a ‘normal’ body would.  So, we are looking for a sponsor for Zeporah for the next 6 months to help her pay for the special food Zeporah needs.  Please email me at jua_project@yahoo.com if you are interested to learn more.

Thank you for praying for us and for Jua.  We are continuing to grow and blossom and we will continue to take every mom the Lord puts in our path.

More to come….

It’s hard to believe we are in our third “trimester” here in Kitale.  Just six months ago we plopped down into this beautiful country called Kenya to have our hearts explode in ways we could never imagine.  We have three more months before we return to the USA.

God continues to work in our family’s life and it has been a great joy to see Him work in the lives of our children, our marriage, in the people of Kenya and see miracles happen that only He could do.

Our volunteer base has expanded tremendously, and I am so humbled to think of all the help that we have received.  Bridget, Hannah and the Tinsman family are people that have all moved to Kitale to help with Jua in one form or another.  I will post photos when I seem to have a speedier internet connection.  In the USA, we have wonderful people who are helping behind the scenes get our financials, our website and retailers organized to showcase the jewelry our moms are making.

Jua Project has expanded in several ways the past month.  We currently have 8 moms in our group.  About half of them are HIV positive and of those, many of their children have HIV as well.  All of our moms are single or widowed.  All of our moms have or have had children who have been severely malnourished at one time.  All of our moms struggle to provide for their children and are barely scraping by.

We meet daily for 5 hours, working on jewelry that you can pre order today, to be delivered in early July to the US.  (More info on that later).  We used to start at 9am, but now I have barely taken a sip of my coffee at 7:30am and they are standing at our gate, waiting to start their day.  The first hour of our time together has included a time of prayer/meditation and singing.  African style.  I find myself jumping in my jammies most days.  10,000 reasons again to Praise God for all He is doing here.

Jua Project has been a spontaneous work only the Lord could do to help single moms in Kenya.  It is our prayer that Jua will continue to expand and grow and we can help mamas here-and other places feed their children and keep them out of children’s homes.

We have the new ability to receive donations online.  If you are a current sponsor for one of our families, would like to purchase jewelry that has been displayed on our Facebook page, or would like to give to our general fund for feeding needy families in our area, please click the donate button below Jua’s logo.

My internet connection has been so slow for several weeks, making photos very difficult for me to post on here (it’s a miracle that I am to ble to write this!) so, bear with me as I try  to post more frequently the ways you can help!!