What began as a trip to explore widows needs in 2014 has resulted in eager learners in Bathore. Our partner is Enkeleda Kumaraku, founder of Radio 7 in Tirana. Partnering through a church, these motivated women have great needs and have experienced great loss.

The great success of Asamankese’s first project inspired us to train 25 more widows in this community. Attending the graduation of the first group confirmed that eager learners deserve an opportunity to become skilled tailors. Victory Baptist Church’s Pastor Bonsu and his team selected the class from their large widows group. In January Theo and Monica Asare, our Theovision partners, delivered 25 machines and the hard work began.

Daughter Valerie and I visited “A Child’s Voice,” our partner in Kampala, Uganda to meet the women and celebrate their success. 12 women have invested time learning, practicing, and creating items for themselves or their children.

Daughter Valerie Hogan and I traveled with Theo and Monica Asare, our Theovision partners, to Asamankese. Greeted with singing, we were blessed to see the gradates in the front rows with tables before them of the clothing they’ve made.

While only 10 widows participated in our first training session in Mathare Valley, the benefit to each of them was great. Yes, this was a challenging project. However, Mathare Valley is the poorest location where we have partnered. Through set backs and discouragements, the widows continued to show up. Sometimes that’s the greatest part of success–just showing up!

During these three weeks in Africa, she took a bigger chunk of my heart and some soul as well. I’ve just returned from Mukhotwene Village, our first sewing project. The graduation ceremony was pure evidence that when God is in it, He completes it, blessing abundantly our efforts.

April 18, 2013 Balloon arches and fabric banners decorating the graduation platform greeted us as we arrived to see 20 new tailor graduates receive their certificates and graduation machines. Seated across from the graduates were their dependents, children whose lives will be forever changed because their Moms now have a skill.

Compassion International and Widow Connection brought widows from Anhwiam and Odoben villages together to participate in the widows` project to empower them with sewing livelihood skills. Twenty participants were selected from a list of over 100 widows from Odoben and over 30 from Anhwiam.

love serving with creative partners like Enkelejda!  After our successful Bathore tailoring project we wondered how we could serve widows who aren’t inclined to learn sewing.  Why not baking? The result, our current project training widows in the skill of baking. The goal of this pilot is that each learn to make 200 different types of deserts and salty foods.  In addition to baking, they would learn catering skills.

Beatrice Nyangarsa began contacting me in 2014 seeing our website and our mission of serving widows.  She has been serving widows and orphans in her church.  Her first request was simply for biblical resources.  Teaching tools are good.

Africa:  extreme contradictions.  Beauty beyond description, hard living. Valerie and I returned from Kissi Kenya thrilled to be a part of two loud and joyful celebrations of widows graduating with tailoring skill in Nyamarambe Rongo and Ogembo.

Our tailoring project is complete!  In addition to their skill,  they were encouraged  with the real hope that comes from God. Some of them were from Muslim background, some Catholic and one a Christian. All expressed deep gratitude for this opportunity. All of them feel much more confident and happy with their skill to sew clothes for their children, things for their houses, products to sell, or find a paid work in a factory.

Our 13th project in Brasilia in Northern Brazil is unique. 12 women in a rural area and 12 in an urban setting. Their challenges were different, their needs were the same. A skill to equip them to be financially independent in their location:  self-sufficient.   Poverty brings many risks not to just them but their children.