God's Grace

She was 13 years old when she gave birth to her first born. She was a child herself when she became a mother.  Usually for a woman to become a mother at this early age, it usually means one of two things: 1) she was raped or 2) she became a young bride.  For Grace, it was the latter.

She is disabled from the waist down.  She wasn't going to be able to bring in money for the family by working for them as a house girl or by doing manual labour. She wasn't able to go to school. The next best thing was to marry her off to a man, where the family could receive at least some money for her, through a dowry.

This woman can smile.  She doesn't have much but wow, does her smile light up a room.  Although she doesn't have much in ways of materialistic things, she has a whole lot of joy. 

Ruth & Grace

 Grace has three children: Emmanuel (age 13), Janton (age 6) and Ruth (age 3) that she cares for.  She also cares for her 9 year old nephew, Dona.  They live in a slum area outside of downtown Kitale. Their house consists of a couch, a table and two chairs.  There are two beds for the family to sleep on and two worn out and torn mattresses. 

Emmanuel

Janton

Ruth

Dona

Because of her disability, Grace can't work. Most woman find jobs like weeding farms and cleaning homes for other people to help generate an income to feed their families but no one will hire Grace. They see her more as a burden than for the joyful woman she is. Thankfully, Grace was given a wheelchair years ago and is able to get around, rather than being cooped up in her home all the time.  Grace and her children rely on their neighbours to give them scraps of food or well-wishers to give her handouts.  There is a local church that provides her with food each December and they send all the children, other than Ruth as she's too young, to their school.  It makes us happy to see that the church, the community, is helping in ways that they can.

We, O5M, received a donation to help support a widow with a trade/schooling.  We were told it was to go to whatever widow we felt would benefit from this opportunity.  We discussed and prayed about it and felt that Grace would be the one who would best be able to use it at this time.  She is only 26 years old and needs a fresh start.

We have a few ideas of what types of trades/schooling she can do with her upper body that will generate a great income for her in the long run where she will be able to become self-sustaining.  We will be meeting with her again to see about the ideas and her thoughts so that we may move forward.

However, in the meantime, we would like to find sponsorship for her three children and nephew for food and general needs.  Please consider sponsoring Emmanuel, Dona, Janton or Ruth.  For a full sponsorship and one sponsor, it is $50 per month per child. If you are unable to do a full sponsorship, you can sponsor one of the children for $25 per month (there will be two sponsors as it needs to equal $50 per month). This provides them with basic food, general and any medical care (such as malaria meds) each month.  Because their schooling is already looked after, we can put a bit of the sponsorship money each month toward new beds, blankets and mattresses.

You will receive yearly updates on your sponsor child. Plus if you "like" O5M's Facebook page, you will get random updates on your child when we post pictures of deliveries or discipleship time. 

Please look at the website:  www.one5ministries.com for more details or email us at support@one5ministries.com.

In His Service,

Meredith