Just a little over six months ago in a tiny, rented room in Kitale town in western Kenya, a women’s vocational training center (Dorcas Hands) was started. We opened with a few sewing machines, a couple of volunteer teachers, some materials and three students. Today we have a professional tailoring teacher, a larger three-room facility in order to accommodate five new students, as well as the knitting machine, more sewing machines, and an overlock machine. Christine, one of the first three students, is just about to graduate. Elizabeth, the director of the school, reports that students “are celebrating and thanking me every day for coming up with Dorcas.” She says the women are literally transforming before her not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well.
Hope is a powerful weapon! Christine (pictured) came to the school discouraged, worn out and with barely enough energy to eek out the strength to try to find a way to exist one more day for herself and her son. At 35 years old, she was not only physically ill, but her husband had abandoned her, leaving her nothing. She and her young son lived a marginal existence in a small room in someone else’s home, hoping to be able to obtain food in one way or another. Little did she know how much God loved her or how much women on the other side of the world who had never even met her cared about her.
Elizabeth reached out to her and asked if she wanted to learn the skill of sewing at a new school in town, Dorcas Hands. Even though covered in shame and timidity, she responded to this outreach of love. So with all of the courage she could muster and walking miles to get to the school, Christine showed up the first day and has never quit. Day-by-day she has gotten healthier and stronger.
Today she is a completely different woman than she was that first day. She is learning who she is as a woman - independent, courageous and strong - glowing with health and vibrant with hope and faith for her future—yesterday she didn’t know if she would live through the day. Today she is alive with her dreams about her future.
You made it possible.
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