Posts Tagged ‘Family Strengthening’
Love Rejoices with the Truth
Combatting Harmful Beliefs
This is a story about a small village in Mzimba, a northern district in the Southern African country of Malawi. It is a story about love and the relentless pursuit of the truth—a truth that has set the village of Jenda free and paved the way for love to flourish.
Five years ago, the Ngoni people never could have imagined the transformation their district was about to experience. Though amongst some of the poorest people in the world, the Ngoni are a proud people, rooted in age-old traditions, closed to outsiders and cautious of change.
Before World Relief began working in Mzimba, life was dictated by tribal traditions that oftentimes perpetuated, or worsened, the cycle of poverty and suffering in the community.
The Ngoni people lived their day-to-day lives believing that:
- A malnourished child meant there was infidelity within the marriage.
- Girls were valuable solely for their bride price and should not attend school.
- Upon puberty, girls foreheads should be cut and scarred to reveal their readiness for marriage.
- If women did not bear sons, men may continue to marry as many women as they like. (Polygamy was commonplace.)
- Upon the death of their husband, widows must walk on their knees to the closest river without food or water.
- Pregnant women must not breastfeed or eat eggs.
- Witchdoctors were the only solution to sickness and challenges.
In many cases, these beliefs lead to chronic malnutrition, child abuse or gender injustices that could often mean the difference between life and death. Yet, this way of life went unchallenged for the Ngoni people, who had no expectations or hope of a different way — no opportunity to act on their natural instinct to love, and no relief for the suffering they endured.
Change Takes Root
In 2012, when local World Relief staff first arrived in the village of Jenda, villagers were guarded. They sent local pastors and leaders to meet with the outsiders, doubting the significance of the gathering, in some cases even fearing it was a scam. Little did they know, this meeting would be the beginning of a vibrant transformation. One that revealed life-altering truth, rooted in love and that would lead to the renewal of their lives, their people and their entire community.
As leaders around Jenda came together with World Relief staff in vision-casting seminars, community-based needs assessments and cross-denominational conversations, a wave of excitement and optimism began to spread. Like wildfire, 15 churches soon became 22, spanning 10 denominations and multiple villages across Mzimba as community leaders realized that a different life, and future, for their people was possible.
“We began to understand God’s vision for our community. A truth that had been obscured from us due to age-old cultural practices and mindsets. We learned God had a desire to see us and our community working together in unity to serve one another, love one another and to lift up our community. We learned to work together, to realize our part in helping the most vulnerable, to become self-reliant and to shed harmful beliefs that were hindering us.” — Church Network Committee Chairman
As community leaders and increasingly, community members, began coming together in conversation around these new truths, the tide began to shift.
“We began to understand poverty in a deeper way. We came to realize the power of knowledge, and of self-reliance. And we realized some of our practices must change if we were to lead better lives. — Modesta, Jenda Savings Group Participant
A Flourishing Community
As the people of Jenda gathered to discuss the needs of their village and their vision for the future, the community began adopting changes that gradually gave way to community-wide flourishing.
New cash crops were planted to include soya beans and groundnuts, yielding added household income. With the pooled profits, seedlings were planted to regrow trees that had been lost to deforestation, hundreds of thousands of bricks were molded for the construction of a new school and homes for teachers, a clean-water well was dug, and savings and agricultural groups were formed.
As each new need was identified, the community gathered together to raise money and invest back into their collective vision for their lives and the lives of their children.
But the changes were not just physical. Love and appreciation for the children of the village was instilled as community members began to understand the meaning of Imago Dei—each child created in the image of God and possessing inherent worth.
The value of the girl child and the importance of education for both boys and girls began to take root. Community members began looking out for their friends and neighbors, and families began to repair once broken relationships, thriving in a growing love, care and respect for one another.
Little by little with each passing year, leaders and community members alike began speaking out against harmful practices of polygamy, rites of passage, child brides and witch doctors.
Mothers groups were formed to keep children in school and protect the rights of children, especially girls.
Leaders from other districts began to visit Jenda to witness what, why and how such positive transformation was taking place. And Jenda’s influence was so great that even local government Village Development Committees took note—putting in place by-laws that forbade marriage under the age of 18 and required mothers to give birth in health-centers or local hospitals so as to ensure proper care.
A Flourishing Future
Today, the village of Jenda is unrecognizable. As you enter the center of the village, you pass a deep-water well, three primary school blocks, five well-constructed teachers’ homes, three large enclosed cultivation plots, two brick-molding kilns and a large field of newly planted trees.
The church, which sits as the center of the community with two classrooms, continues to be a place of planning and dreaming toward a flourishing future. Community members plan to build more schools and child care centers, a library and a recreation hall. They want to ensure all girls attend school and every disabled child has access to wheelchair and wheelchair accessible classrooms. And so much more.
Ten years ago, these plans were not even a thought, let alone an aspiration for the Ngoni people in Jenda. Yet today, they stand before us, proclaiming the gospel and the truths that have opened their minds, encouraged love and instilled a bright and bold vision for their future. It is a truth we can all rejoice in.
*At World Relief, our goal is to see local churches continue to serve the most vulnerable long after World Relief transitions out of the area. We do not seek to establish a long-term, ongoing presence in the areas we serve, but instead build capacity among local leaders to sustain the progress they themselves initiated. Once a community is able to meet their target goals, World Relief begins the process of graduating the community, which includes a time of reflecting and celebrating together. The Jenda community is currently set to graduate in 2023! Join us in celebrating and praying for this continuous transformation.
Francesca Albano currently serves as Director of Branded Content at World Relief. With a background in Cultural Anthropology and a graduate degree in Strategic Marketing Communications, she connects her interests in societal studies and global cultures with her training in brand strategy and storytelling. Francesca is especially passionate about grassroots community development and the treatment and advancement of women and girls around the world.
Home Is Where Your Heart Is
In celebration of International Day of Families, we honor and recognize the hundreds of church leaders, volunteers and staff that sacrificially give their time and energy to our Families for Life program and, more importantly, to the men, women and children whose lives have been changed through the volunteers’, leaders’ and staff’s love in action.
Home
A place to go. People who love you. Somewhere you belong. A place to settle down. Home defines place, family, belonging. Identity and compassion.
Regardless of country—Papua, Indonesia, India, Malawi or Democratic Republic of Congo, home is often defined in these similar ways. In fact, it’s likely how you define it as well.
And yet, for many, the ideals associated with ‘home’, and their dreams for family, are a far cry from the reality. Instead, they grapple with broken marriages and relationships, gender injustice, arguments over resources and decision making, difficulty communicating with their children—the list is long and weighty.
But thanks to your support, couples around the world are experiencing renewed hope in their marriages and families through a program we call Families for Life (FFL) program.
Biblical Marriage
Partners like you have helped couples to grow and flourish together as God’s Word describes through FFL programs that restore relationships between husbands and wives to their fullest potential and recalibrate thinking around family and marriage.
In FFL, couples are invited to a workshop to explore biblical and cultural components of marriage. There, they learn that one entire book of the Bible is devoted to the theme of love and marriage—the Song of Songs—a book that is marked with metaphors of love and filled with messages of friendship, attraction, fulfillment and commitment.
After studying Song of Songs, husbands and wives discuss together what it means to be forever friends and intimate companions. They discuss what husbands and wives bring to their homes, and more importantly, to each other, and come to recognize the critical importance of nurturing and loving one another as a couple. Your generosity is radically shifting mindsets for many couples as they discover that a spouse can and should be someone you trust, spend time with, enjoy, confide in, talk to about anything and for whom you willingly sacrifice.
Behavioral Change Curriculum
Layered atop of this biblical study, Families for Life integrates a culturally relevant, story-based curriculum that addresses misbeliefs about women, the importance of valuing and respecting one another, gender equality and biblical sex in marriage. The curriculum is designed to address critical issues among couples and raise questions for reflection and opportunities for change.
As couples’ beliefs around marriage and family shift, so too, do behaviors. Reductions in gender-based violence, alcohol abuse, poverty and unfaithfulness become apparent. Husbands begin to include their wives in decision making processes, wives learn they, too, can contribute to their families resources through income-generating activitIes, parents come to realize the value of educating their children, both girls and boys, and families begin to diligently and intentionally plan for their futures. As perspectives change and mindset shifts occur, deep-seated conflicts are tackled, harmful traditions are questioned and children and generations to come are impacted.
Sustainable Impact
Beyond the powerful restoration of relationships and the resulting behavior-changes that occur, FFL lays the groundwork inside the home for our other programs to have a truly sustainable impact. When we acknowledge the centrality of the family unit in dictating and defining identity, beliefs and behaviors, we tap into the most effective way of impacting sustainable change across a multitude of areas—physical, social, emotional and spiritual. By ensuring both man and woman, boy and girl, are equally valued, given equal opportunity and are equally empowered, the impact of our programming is magnified tenfold.
A Beautiful Vision
God has illustrated to us what He intends for marriage—unity and harmony in diversity and oneness. Marriage should be a sacred reflection of this fullness of life as God designed. Yet, every culture and every marriage fails to reach this standard. The goal of Families for Life is to reach homes and churches with critical lessons that reveal God’s beautiful vision for marriage, and leave behind tools, training and structures for churches to extend these messages for multiplied impact.
Thanks to your support, we’ve completed six country-specific curriculums and trained over 25,000 couples through churches, savings groups and community gatherings in Indonesia, India, Burundi, DRC, Malawi and Haiti. The program is rapidly growing, with plans to expand in the next year to Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Cambodia and eventually Sudan.
Home is, indeed, where our hearts are. It is where mutual honor and support, care and commitment and physical attraction between wives and husbands should grow in every corner of our world.
“I used to drink and spend all our money when I was paid after work. Now, after being in an FFL workshop, I come straight home to my wife and give it to her to spend for the needs of our family. We decide what to do together.” – Husband, Burundi
“In our village, we are seeing less and less violence. People are not coming to me to intervene in cases of violence against women because of this program.” Village chief, Malawi
“I want to tell you, my wife, that I have not honored you as I should. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?” – Pastor Semiti, Democratic Republic of Congo
Deborah Dortzbach is the Senior Program Advisor for World Relief. She has been involved in church-based HIV/AIDS prevention and care since the early 1990s. Prior to joining World Relief she directed MAP International’s HIV/AIDS programs from 1990-1997. Doborah is the author, with W. Meredith Long, of The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do (2006), as well as Kidnapped (1975), which chronicles her 1973 abduction with her husband by the Eritrean Liberation Front while they were working as missionaries.
Thanking God for A Mother’s Love
During a recent children’s sermon, our pastor asked a dozen elementary students: “What do you like best about your mom?” Their comments brought down the house! We heard how their mom, “put the head back on my Ninjago;” “scared away the monster under my bed;” “put my brother in timeout for hitting me;” “made my favorite cake for my birthday.” Jumping in, our pastor then said, “That is how God loves each of you. God is near when you’re frightened, or ill or afraid. God is always ready to listen to you and help you.”
Our children seemed convinced that God loves us like a mother, but the rest of us hesitated. How often do we consciously remind ourselves of God’s nearness and intimate attentiveness to our hopes and fears? Or that God is above gender yet inclusive of all gender—the source of what is true and good in humankind? That God created both male and female in God’s image, and that God’s fullness can only be expressed and fully appreciated in the fullness of genders, which God declared, is very good (Genesis 1:27, 31). While Mother’s Day can be painful for the childless and motherless alike, as well as the socially isolated, everyone can be comforted by God’s love.
Like a mother, God patiently suffers beside us in our fears and failures, nurtures our hopes and sustains us through every trial. That is why Mother’s Day is not only a time to give thanks for our earthly mothers, but also to remember that our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, like a cheek-to-cheek mother, knows us intimately and willingly suffers any cost to comfort, strengthen and guide us.
While Scripture teaches that God is Spirit (John 4:25) and warns against creating earthly images of God (Exodus 20:4), it also teaches that “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15-21). Christ cooked for the disciples (John 21:9); washed their feet (John 13:8); healed the ill (Luke 8:40-48); and wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). Despite the disapproval of his disciples, Christ also honored mothers and women by welcoming them as disciples, inviting them to sit at his feet and learn from Him—a privilege that was previously reserved for men only (Luke 10:38-42). Christ prepared women as evangelists and proclaimers of the Good News (John 20:17). And when a woman was caught in adultery, Jesus invited those without sin to cast the first stone (John 8:1-11). Women’s dignity and leadership was implicit in Christ’s teachings, practices and in his challenges to the marginalization of women.
Elevating mothers and women, Christ used motherly metaphors to illustrate and amplify God’s nearness, providence and tenacious protection. In warning against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Jesus displayed a mother’s heart that longingly protects her children, but wisely allows them free choices despite the pain God suffers when they choose unwisely. Like a mother, God cried out: “‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing,” (Matt. 23:37b).
Just as the father waited for his prodigal son, God also searches for us, God’s lost sheep, like the woman who lost a priceless coin. Unwilling to rest, she lights her lamp and furiously sweeps the house, searching in every corner until she finds her lost treasure. And, just like the father who celebrates when his prodigal son returns home, the woman also delights when she finds her priceless coin. She “calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” (Matthew 23: 9-10).
God’s work is inseparable from the hands and feet of mothers, and of the women who proactively proclaim the gospel in word and deed. Because Scripture speaks of God in both fatherly and motherly terms, we recognize that both qualities are necessary to strengthen our lives and nurture our souls. In remembering our mothers, we celebrate God who created women and mothers, and loves us like a mother. God’s motherly love is always ready to fight to the end, rather than be separated from her own flesh, just as a mother bear protects her cubs (Hosea 13:8).
On Mother’s Day we take comfort in knowing that, whatever our failures, hopes or fears, like a mother, God will move heaven and earth to reach us, heal us, lead us and comfort us.
God, thank you for loving me, and all of us, also as a mother.
Dr. Mimi Haddad is president of CBE International. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary (Summa Cum Laude). She holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England.
Frontline Report: Jordan
This year, we will be launching a new Perspectives series called Frontline Reports. This series is intended to provide updates on the countries, contexts, and situations in which we work as they continue to evolve. The reports will be written entirely by program experts and local staff on the ground.
This past March marked the 7-year anniversary of the war in Syria. It is a grim anniversary, marking seven years of loss, suffering and displacement for millions of people across the Middle East. Each month, the world’s attention to the war in Syria ebbs and flows, usually dictated by a surge of media coverage in response to a specific event. But between the intermittent spikes of media attention, millions of people continually endure the consequences of violence and displacement across the Middle East
Seven years into the crisis, the massive needs of displaced populations continue to grow. Families have now mostly depleted whatever resources they managed to flee with at the start of the crisis. They face increased debt, financial pressure, shrinking resources and limited opportunities for generating income. Many are struggling to survive and meet basic needs, which sadly results in an increased reliance on negative coping mechanisms, like early or forced marriage, child labor, domestic violence and exploitative labor. Facing similarly dire circumstances, countries hosting refugees are experiencing increased pressure on already overburdened social, economic and political systems, resulting in a scarcity of resources and growing tensions between the diverse communities residing within Jordan and other countries in the Middle East.
The consequences of displacement are long-term and generational. Recognizing this complexity, World Relief come alongside these communities to build their capacity to find practical and sustainable solutions to their needs; solutions which address the root causes of the issues affecting their communities, not just the consequences.
The foundation of all of World Relief’s work in the Middle East is the belief that affected communities are in the best position to strategize and implement effective and relevant solutions that will endure for generations. Together with the community, World Relief has developed a unique framework that seeks to engage and strengthen the whole family, both as individuals and as a family unit. By targeting entire families through both individual and joint programs, World Relief desires to see vulnerable refugee families and receiving communities healed, safe and thriving, despite the incredible pressures they face.
World Relief’s programs target women, men, boys and girls in a diversity of programs, designed to help promote safe, healthy and thriving families. This has proven an effective strategy in meeting the diverse needs of vulnerable families, but also in protecting women and children, who are disproportionately endangered by violence and displacement.
World Relief’s family strengthening approach in Jordan, for example, includes the following programs, which all use uniquely designed curricula developed together with the affected community:
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Child Friendly Spaces: World Relief provides designated safe spaces where displaced children can come to play, learn and recover some of the essential developmental activities of childhood, with the support of trained facilitators. Sessions include exercise, health, school skills and life-skills.
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Literacy Support: The diverse and significant barriers that children and adults face when they flee their homes as refugees contribute to significant literacy gaps, poor motivation, and an increased risk of negative coping mechanisms. Recognizing this threat, World Relief provides Arabic and English literacy support to illiterate adults and children who are struggling to keep up in school.
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Girls’ Empowerment through Sports: In partnership with the Ministry of Education, this program provides vulnerable Jordanian and Syrian girls with access to sports. Teachers in local schools are equipped to be coaches and provide practical soccer skills as well as life-skills training to girls in the program.
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Caregiver Support Groups: Psychosocial counseling and support groups are made available to displaced women, particularly focused on mothers or caregivers.
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Positive Parenting: Our parenting group uses a curriculum that promotes positive parenting skills to promote healthy and supportive family environments. This curriculum is designed for use with both men and women, emphasizing the need for men to also engage in positive parenting.
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Marriage Strengthening: Refugee couples often face significant marital challenges catalyzed by the extreme pressure and trauma of displacement. Early marriages as well as sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) still exists in many places. World Relief has therefore developed a curricula for men and women on important marriage topics, and is piloting this with both men and women. This is often the first time men are learning and listening to the women’s perspective on important family related topics.
We are so encouraged to see how our staff and volunteers are leading these programs and seeing transformation take place in individuals, within families, and in entire communities. While the needs are many, we have great hope when we see the resolve and commitment of the communities we serve. Healthy families create healthy communities, which in turn form nations. We continue to believe in restoration, healing and thriving futures for families and communities across the Middle East!
Maggie Konstanski has been a part of the World Relief team for over 4 years, and currently serves at the Middle East Programs Technical and Operations Coordinator. With a passion for international human rights, Maggie often uses work-related travel as a platform to tell the powerful stories of the vulnerable families and communities we serve.
The Magic Years: Care Groups
My grandson had a birthday recently. He’s two. He blew out candles, devoured cake and ice cream, and tore into presents. His favorite was a large bubble machine that floated huge translucent bubbles all over the room when he blew with all his might.
My work every day at World Relief involves birthdays. We mark them, celebrate them, prepare for them, and advocate for them. No, not birthdays with cake and bubbles, but birthdays with critical significance: the milestone of reaching a precious child’s fifth birthday.
The months of life in a mother’s womb and the first five years of a child’s life are the most critical. These are the years of rapid brain growth, physical, mental, and developmental growth, of early adaptation to our world of disease, of bonding with mother and family, and of discovering personhood, belonging, and identity. These are the “magic years” as described by author Selma Fraiberg. [1]
Too many children in our world never reach their fifth birthdays. In fact, nearly 6 million children under-five die every year. [2] They die prematurely from diarrhea, malnutrition, malaria or pneumonia; all of which are preventable deaths. Today, however, we know how to simply, cost-effectively and radically ensure that no child fails to reach his or her fifth birthday because of these causes.
Recognizing what nutrition experts call, a “Window of Opportunity” to promote nutrition and early development during the first 1000 days of life (counted from conception to two years), World Relief and the communities and churches we work through are seizing this opportunity to protect and nurture these precious children under the age of five. The interventions are basic:improved nutrition for mothers, infants, and children; prevention of life threatening pneumonia and diarrhea;and prevention and early treatment of malaria. Something as simple as hand-washing with soap can prevent persistent diarrhea that may eventually lead to severe dehydration, malnutrition and even death in a two-year old.
So what prevents this life-saving work from saving the lives of more children? How can we reach the millions of children needing this support throughout these early months and years? How can we impact behavior, especially where some cultural practices and a simple lack of knowledge can impede growth and development?
Long ago, a practical solution to reaching large masses of people was proposed by Jethro, a simple farmer whose son God chose to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land—Moses. Today, World Relief and many other NGOs and governments are using the same model Moses initiated…and we call them Care Groups.
Care Groups are an integral part of our Church Empowerment Zone (CEZ) model, pioneered in Rwanda and used across many of our programs in sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia and the Middle East. As a part of the process, small groups of 10-15 community members are formed, trust is built, information is shared, volunteers support one another, and then share their learnings with neighbors in their village. Complete community saturation is the goal and the means through which Care Groups can potentially reach every child under five to ensure they safely navigate their early years.
The implementation and impact results of this biblically-designed approach has a growing amount of evidence-based findings. The peer-to-peer approach has reached over 1.4 million households in more than 28 countries globally. [3] It is attracting public health experts, government ministries of health, and large development funders. And, it is at the very core of what we do here at World Relief.
World Relief’s Pieter Ernst first developed the concept of Care Groups in 1995. In his words:
About 3,500 years back in history, a skilled and educated leader by the name of Moses from a nomadic nation of around 3,000,000 people wanted, on his own, to judge and resolve all the social and many other problems they had as a result of living so close together. Interestingly, in spite of all his education and his close relationship with God, he was unable to see beyond his own experience, and God sent his less educated father-in-law, Jethro, from a distant country to visit and advise him about the advantages of Care Groups. He also gave him some important selection criteria for choosing the right volunteers, and gave him guidance on an accountability that included a supervision structure that would help secure sustainability. Therefore, in reality, Care Groups is a design structure that is 3,500 years old. It is God’s doing… [4]
With a little updating from Moses’ time, today we are pressing our technological age to do what works, no matter how simple it may be. Public health experts who studied eight Care Group projects found that as a result of the group teachings and outreach, under-five mortality decreased by 32%. And the cost per beneficiary per year for such impact? Only US $3-$8. [5]
Once scaling and saturation takes place in communities, the Care Group model allows communities to reach a critical tipping point that has the potential to transform entire nations. As a result, the Care group model becomes an efficient, inexpensive, self-sustaining vehicle for transformation.
It is a future that is bright, and filled with healthy, joyful children, celebrating many more birthdays to come.
[1] The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood (Fraiberg, Selma. Simon and Schuster.)
[2] Acting on the Call, USAID, 2017 Fact Sheet
[3] Global Health: Science and Practice 2015, Vol 3, Issue 3, p. 370
[4] CORE Group Conference for Global Health Practitioners, Silver Spring, MD October 16, 2014, Acceptance Speech by Pieter Ernst for Dory Storms Award
[5] Global Health: Science and Practice 2015, Vol 3, Issue 3, p. 370
Deborah Dortzbach is the Senior Program Advisor for World Relief. She has been involved in church-based HIV/AIDS prevention and care since the early 1990s. Prior to joining World Relief she directed MAP International’s HIV/AIDS programs from 1990-1997. Doborah is the author, with W. Meredith Long, of The AIDS Crisis: What We Can Do (2006), as well as Kidnapped (1975), which chronicles her 1973 abduction with her husband by the Eritrean Liberation Front while they were working as missionaries.
Thank God for Women — Thank God for My Mum
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
My mother was raised in a religious family. She taught me and my three siblings the basics of Christianity and taught us to love people around us. When my father died on the battlefield, my mother was there for us, uniting us as a family—loving and caring for each other even though we had hard times. As a single parent, it was never easy for my mother to provide everything but she made sure we had what we needed.
For many years, my mum worked endlessly to see that my siblings and I got the best education, all while looking for jobs that would sustain us as the needs of our family increased. We always had people from different backgrounds staying with us, and my siblings and I couldn’t understand why. As time went by I came to realize that my mum was always friendly and hospitable to everyone that came by. She wanted to give the best of her time to them.
After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi occurred, my mother and I moved from Uganda back to Rwanda (where she was born) to get a more stable life—my siblings stayed behind to finish school. For 6 years, we went back and forth between Uganda and Rwanda to visit my siblings because I missed them. I once asked her why she had brought me alone along with her and left my siblings behind. She told me that “I love you so much and your siblings can’t be with us now, but I love them very much too.” It wasn’t long before we were reunited with them for good. In the meantime, my mother had found a job as a nurse at a clinic in Kigali. The school I went to was close to the clinic and after school, I would meet her at work and we would walk home together.
The nature of my mother’s relationship with me was not only of a child and a parent but also of a friend and confidant. She encouraged me and made me feel important to her. This made me a very confident person.
Along the way, my mother found salvation and she found new meaning and purpose in life. Life as a single parent was never easy for her, she was constantly striving hard to make ends meet—the weight of that was often heavy. With Jesus in her life, she was so much happier and full of hope because she had found faith.
In 2002, my mother started working with World Relief Rwanda, which at the time was helping people to understand and accept living positively with individuals who were HIV positive. She endeavored to get to know and establish relationships with them, so they could trust her and accept her teachings. As a result of her counseling and spiritual mentoring, these individuals were able to reunite and live in harmony with other people, which wasn’t the case before because a stigma had isolated them. The more she worked and the longer she stayed with them, the more my mother got closer to the most vulnerable.
The more I saw my mum go every week to spend hours and days with suffering people, the more I learned from the stories she shared about her experience. She always reminded me that even if it doesn’t feel like you have enough to give to the most vulnerable, physically being with them, praying with them and socializing with them provided relief and community for them. For over 15 years, she has always been an advocate of the most vulnerable, and most especially for women in the community.
In 2007, I joined a program called Choose Life at my high school to receive training to then train my peers in the community. I was excited for this opportunity because I was able to reach out to my fellow youth, and because of the stories my mother would tell me about serving the most vulnerable.
I thank God for my mum and her lifelong impact. Because of her I went on to study Computer Science in college where my passion to serve the vulnerable grew stronger and led me to pursue my second degree in Community Work and Development. She has influenced me to pursue the work I am doing today.
Bob Allan Karemera is World Relief Rwanda Strategic Partnership Officer for more than 4 years. In his role, he coordinates relationships with with seven church partners and donors, connecting and engaging them in meaningful ways to WR Rwanda’s work. With a degree from Mount Kenya University in Kigali in Social Work and Administration, Bob further developed his passion for community work.
Thank God for Women — We’re Hiring
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
No one in their right mind would apply for a job that had no vacations, no pay, and a workload that more than doubles around the holidays—especially a holiday in your honor. More than any other holiday, Mother’s Day evokes the full range of emotions in people.
The propensity for a vast pendulum swing of sentiments is both deep and wide when it comes to Mother’s Day because mothering has so many different stages and phases.
There are the mommas that are in their first few moments of mothering. They are new to the journey and deep down inside they are wondering will I ever sleep again.
There are those in the trenches with little ones that wear the badge of food stains and puke on their shirts wondering, “will I ever take another uninterrupted shower in my life?”
There are those wading in the choppy waters of the testing years of motherhood. You have colored many grey hairs and your knees are wobbly and skinned from praying that your children would find a path that leads them to wholeness and freedom.
There are the single mom’s that are more than deserving of adorning themselves each morning in a super woman cape as they shoulder the responsibilities of being both parent and provider outside of a partnership.
There are those rejoicing with vibrant and fulfilling relationships with their children.
There are those mourning in the grief of a miscarriage, failed adoption, or loss of a child.
There are those walking the desert road of infertility. Feeling alone and discouraged choking back tears at every other woman’s baby shower and birth announcement.
There are the adoptive moms, foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms that pull children into their hearts and homes and love them as their own.
There are those who experience disappointment, heartache, and distance with their children and this day highlights and underscores the ever-present ache that you carry.
There are those who lost their mothers…and the missing of their own Momma vibrates through their being.
There are those who experienced abuse at the hands of their own mother—and they feel conflicted, challenged and even confused as to how to hold their range of emotions within their being.
There are those who are single and long to be married and mothering their own children and they try to hold their head high on this day when their heart feels tender with unmet desire.
There are step-moms, maneuvering their way through the intricacies of blending families together.
There are those who placed children up for adoption that still hold that child in their hearts.
There are those whose nests have become emptier and they are now steering a new ship with less cargo and the shift in weight has left them feeling unbalanced and uneven.
There are many more categories and complexities and certainly not enough sections in the card department for all the different “mothers” in this world.
Today on Mother’s Day, where we celebrate a job well done, a job that is often thankless & profitless and rarely deposits resources into our retirement funds.
Let’s choose to celebrate one another instead of comparing one another.
Let’s choose to delight in one another and the distinct ways in which we mother instead of disregarding our differences.
Let’s sprinkle praise and blessings and encouragement on all mom’s everywhere instead of remaining silent and secluded.
Let’s see and celebrate our children…. All children that we have the privilege to mother as sacred teachers sent from God that bring with them a spiritual curriculum to grow our souls to deeper levels of perseverance, character, hope and love.
Here’s to you Moms, may you delight in all the beautiful benefits from this crazy job called MOTHERING.
Jeanne Stevens is one of the lead pastors of Soul City Church in the dynamic West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, IL. Jeanne has had the opportunity to teach, pastor and speak in to the lives of thousands of people across the US and around the world. Her passion to develop leaders, encourage people to live from the fullest part of themselves and to live boldly give her a unique voice of hope and challenge. You can follow Jeanne on Instagram & Twitter – @JeanneMStevens and become her friend on Facebook – Jeanne Stevens.
Thank God for Women — Heroes in the Fight for Justice
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
A few years ago, a dear friend gave me a book titled, Women Are Heroes. It is filled with beautiful portraits and stories of women around the world whose very existence is heroic. I flip through it often and I am constantly inspired by the resilience, strength and grace that women posses.
You don’t have to look very far to find disturbing statistics about women across the globe. Women, on average, still make less than men. We are more prone to being victimized by sexual violence. We have less access to education. The list goes on. But somehow, despite all of the data, there are women who continue to defy the odds—fighting for justice in their communities, raising families with inadequate resources, building businesses out of nothing, and striving for educational opportunities to not only better themselves but the people around them as well.
My line of work has afforded me the privilege of traveling all around the world and wherever I go, I am always in awe of the women I meet.
I have visited with women in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Women who have lived through atrocities of war and sexual violence against their bodies. But in spite of all they have experienced, they continue to work towards the healing of themselves, their own, and the healing of other women in their communities. These women speak of forgiveness, hope and peacebuilding in their communities.
I have listened to women in Kenya share how they started a savings group so that they could pay for their kids’ uniforms and school fees. They were soon able to start their own businesses, and then began to pay the school fees for other children in the community who were in need.
I have sat with women from both Israel and Palestine as they shared their painful stories of loss, what forgiveness looks like and how they can begin to lead their communities to understand the narrative of the “other.”
I am surrounded by countless women—many whom I am honored to call friends—here in the United States who have committed their lives to advocate for those who suffer under the oppression of racial, gender, and economic injustice.
When women are not allowed to fully express their God-given potential, it is affront to our Creator and a disservice to all of humanity.
Throughout history, countless women have ignored the limitations that society has placed on them and fought, against all odds, for the opportunity to flourish. Women like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Malala Yousafzai, Yuri Kochiyama, Berta Cáceres, Katherine G. Johnson, Septima Clark, the millions of refugee women around the world—the list goes on. These women have blazed trails, smashed ceilings, fought countless battles so that the next generation could dream bigger, soar higher and achieve things they never thought to be possible.
The fight for women’s rights means equal rights for all. Women work for the betterment of families, communities and nations. There is a deep understanding that we are all connected to each other and we all rise and fall together.
So today—and every day—I thank God for women. The dreamers, troublemakers, peacemakers, bridge builders, trailblazers, ceiling crushers, and image bearers of the Creator. The women who see injustice in our world and refuse to stay silent. Those who work to infuse radical love and hope into our world.
Women are heroes and I stand on the shoulders of the ones who have gone before me, and I link arms with the present day warriors. Together, we continue the fight for justice for all people.
Chi Chi Okwu is a Senior Church Advisor for World Vision USA—working with churches and parachurch organizations to build strategic partnerships focusing on community development and relief work globally. She is passionate about issues relating to faith and justice specifically in the areas of race, gender and reconciliation, and enjoys speaking and writing on those topics. Chi Chi currently resides in Chicago and enjoys traveling, cooking, watching sports and spending quality time with friends and family.
Thank God for Women — The Remarkable Story of Beatrice, A Tangible Experience of Joy
Thank God for Women is a blog series rooted in gratitude for the strength, courage, and incredible capacity women demonstrate.
Occasionally, in life, we are blessed to experience joy in its purest, most unadulterated form. It can come in a quiet moment of prayer, an incredible experience, or even through a person.
For me, one of these precious moment of joy came in the form of a beautiful wife and mother, named Beatrice, who lived in the Bushenge district of Rwanda. Beatrice is an individual who radiates the love of Jesus. When I think of her, I immediately think of Proverbs 31—clothed in strength and dignity, laughing without fear of the future.
For Beatrice, however, that was not always the case. For years, she longed to repair the broken relationships within her family to prepare her children for their future. Beatrice spoke with a tangible sadness when she explained how isolated she was from her children. “I was too shy to talk to them about their health and their bodies, or to counsel them on difficulties of being a teenager. They were lost, and I continued to build a wall between us, higher and thicker with each passing year.”
As Beatrice struggled to understand how to relate to her new adolescents, she joined a parenting group run by a local church as a part of World Relief’s “Mobilizing For Life” program. She began learning about God’s vision for family, and the opportunity and gift she’d been given in motherhood. Beatrice learned to rise above her embarrassment and enter into discussions with her children around health, dating, sex, and HIV/AIDS. And it wasn’t long before Beatrice broke through yet another social barrier—encouraging her husband, Gracian, to join her.
Less than five years later, Beatrice and Gracian are pillars of inspiration and faith in their community. Today, Beatrice and Gracian lead kids-clubs throughout their community. Each week they spend time with nearly 100 adolescents, counseling them and fostering a safe and open environment where kids from all walks of life can share their struggles and ask questions. And what they have achieved is truly remarkable. In her own words, through a smile that reached ear to ear, Beatrice told us about their work.
“In 2014 we started a kids club counseling youth. We teach the kids the word of God, but we also talk about how to make good decisions. We focus on how to pick good friends, to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and avoid HIV and early pregnancy. We even started hosting soccer games and offering free HIV testing at matches. Last match we had over 80 kids come to play and get tested!
It is truly amazing, and our initiative is only growing. We are fostering an environment of openness where everyone comes to us for advice. We are so happy that we’ve been able to learn and share so much and be a part of change in our community.”
I truly believe that supporting, celebrating, and investing in women like Beatrice is the most effective and impactful way to change lives. To watch a once-struggling wife and mother in rural Rwanda be transformed by a renewed understanding of God’s calling for her life has an unparalleled beauty and power.
To be in her presence is to experience God in a beautiful and tangible way.
Beatrice is why I Thank God for Women each day.
Women of incredible faith, uniquely and purposefully placed to experience and reveal God’s plan for the world in the most unexpected ways and places.
Capable of restoring brokenness with one smile.
Laughing without fear of the future. Rather, embracing it. Transforming it.
These are brave kingdom warriors, beautiful and courageous women of God, stepping out in faith to transform their families and ultimately, their entire communities.
Give to World Relief today. Together, we can create a better world for women like Beatrice.
Francesca Albano currently serves as Product Development Lead at World Relief. With a background in strategic marketing communications, she connects her interests in brand strategy, audience engagement, and storytelling around her passions—children, disaster and humanitarian relief, human rights, and poverty alleviation. Francesca best describes herself as a storyteller, writer, foodie, globetrotter, and humanitarian.
How Do We Help Our Kids Stand with the Vulnerable?
At World Relief, it’s in our DNA to stand with the vulnerable. With school back in session and all of the dynamics that come along with this season, how do we teach our kids to stand with the vulnerable?
This week, as many children in America start a new school year, I can’t help but think of the thousands of immigrant and refugee children starting the academic year at a new school, in a new country, learning a new language and adjusting to a new culture with the hopes of making new friends.
These kids may be scared, excited, happy, sad or—at times—all of the above. But, like all kids, they mostly want to feel included and welcomed in their new environment.
As a parent myself, the start of the school year always proves to be chaotic as we go from a free-for-all summer, to trying to assemble some sort of routine that will carry us through the day—from the morning mayhem to the afternoon witching hours of homework, hungry bellies, and dinner—before doing it all over again in Groundhog Day-like fashion.
As caregivers, we want the kids in our lives to do their best in school. We also want to raise children who help the world be a better place. And as engaged parents, even during this chaotic season, we can do this. We can envision our children to help those around them who may be vulnerable, so that their school is an environment where they and their peers can experience hope, confidence, possibility, growth and opportunity.
At World Relief, we talk a lot about standing with the vulnerable. In kid language, I would define a vulnerable person at school as someone that is being picked on or left out.
Amidst the chaos of a new school year, how do we help our kids think bigger than themselves as we try to raise global citizens? We pause the whirlwind—if only for a brief moment—to circle the wagons over dinner or pre-bedtime routines, to engage in intentional conversations with our kids. We help them understand how to identify a peer that may be vulnerable, and ask them if they’ve noticed anyone in their classroom or school who seemed vulnerable today. We ask how they can help make their classroom or school an environment where they and their peers can experience hope, confidence, possibility, growth and opportunity.
We know life is busy. So to help, we’ve created a free, downloadable, ready-to-print coloring page that we hope serves as a conversation starter for you and your kids. Together, we can help our kids not only be more aware and welcoming to the thousands of kids new to school in America, but also have the courage to stand with anyone who is vulnerable by simply being kind to them.
Who knows? Maybe plopping a few coloring pages and crayons on the table before dinner will help turn the after-school chaos into a meaningful evening, if only for a few moments.
I’m going to try this at our dinner table tonight.*
*Provided there isn’t too much homework.
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