Therese

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Last week, we fell into quite the routine. Between teaching English to the clinic staff twice a week, doing home visits on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and working in the clinic regularly, we've been kept relatively busy! However, Africa operates at a slightly slower pace than America. So when I say "busy", I really mean that relative to Africa. ;)

As I mentioned, Kelsey and I have been doing home visits 3 days a week. For this ministry activity, we are actually split up. Each of us goes with a translator and a social worker, and we spend the morning walking around town to different homes. We are visiting families involved in the mission's school children program. As it is now summer break for kids here in Abengourou, the kids are at home and we usually get to sit down with the children involved and their mother for a short visit. During this visit, we check up on the children's school performance (the session just ended, so we usually can ask after their performance this term). We also focus heavily and primarily on any sort of health problems the family faces. We will inquire about their water supply, how much and what they're eating, the overall health of the family, and any sort of change they'd like to see that might help their family's well-being.

A family courtyard I visited

An area of Abengourou called Plateau

Today, I want to write about one of the families I encountered during home visits last week. I met Therese on Wednesday, an older woman who has several kids in the school children program. What really stood out to me about Therese was her joy. As we came into the courtyard, her eyes visibly lit up to see us. She didn't shake my hand; instead, Therese wrapped her arms around me and laughed with joy upon our meeting. Therese engaged me the entire time and wanted nothing more than to share things about her life and her family with us. She loved having us there, and her excitement about our program was heard by me even without a French to English translation. Before we got up to go and to her delight, I prayed out loud for the family in English. Then, she wrapped me in another large hug and insisted on taking a picture with me on her phone so she could keep it.

Therese and some of her family

Therese takes care of 7 children in the school children program (which is a lot!). She is the mother of 4 of them, but she also looks after 3 other kids that live in the courtyard. She also looks after a young man who is mentally ill and the child of another mentally ill woman who is not in the program. Therese doesn't have a job; in order to support all the mouths she feeds, she rents out one of the rooms in the family courtyard. Her husband is sickly and has hypertension, so most of the responsibility to support the family falls upon her shoulders. Thankfully, she has a brother who sends money to support the children. But honestly, the family doesn't have much money and can really only afford to eat 2 small meals per day. Towards the end of the visit, I asked what kind of changes she would like to see that might help the family's well being. Therese gave the same answer that almost every other family has given me: she'd like to sell something in order to have money to better provide for the family. As I was reflecting on this visit, I couldn't help but think about how this woman, who struggles so much each day just to meet the basic needs of her family, is filled with so much joy and life. Sylvain, my translator, told me as were walking away from the home that Therese was truly a good woman who took care of so many people just because it was simply the right and loving thing to do.

Children we saw playing in the road during home visits

The CHE program strives to help people like Therese, a Muslim woman who, by herself, supports 10 other people. CHE hopes to connect people with the resources and knowledge needed to emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially better provide for the family. One way CHE does this is through micro-enterprise. The mission has recently begun a chicken farm micro-enterprise project. Hopefully, families like Therese's will be able to work with the chicken farm program to sell eggs, thereby earning money to better provide basic needs for the family. These families will be transformed financially, and hopefully spiritually, as they grow in the knowledge of Jesus through CHE.

Today, I want to ask each of you to pray about the CHE program activities happening in Ivory Coast. I'm glad I am here in Africa so I can share with you about this program. It has, is, and will change so many lives, and I am right here in the middle of it! As always, thank you all for your continuous and unrelenting love and support.

Love,
Danica