We just finished the first two women’s seminars in the beautiful new Koala Place Mothering Center in Arusha, Tanzania. Wow! Were lives changed this week at Neema Village! Not only the students but the volunteers lives were changed by the impact of their efforts. The gratitude of the students was evident in spirited songs, tears and letters and even one letter from a grateful husband for the new confidence of his young wife.

Debbie Chai, from Billings, MT taught a fun conversational English class for local Tanzanian women. Most days she had about 15 women in her classes. Volunteers Brenna and Blayne helped in the class.

It got a bit rambunctious in the class at times with Chocolate M & M Bingo and learning the body parts with the Twister game. But I think they learned some good English phrases that might come in handy someday and they formed some good friendships. Our daughter, Kim with two of the young mothers in our outreach program are pictured below.

Below are three of our little mommas in our outreach program with their babies on their backs.

Below is Krista with another one of our mothers. Mama Pretty is in the outreach program as well as the MAP program. Mama Pretty had two babies, one named Pretty and the other named Precious and baby Pretty did not survive. Mothers are called by their oldest child’s name in Tanzania. I am Mama Kim here. We are loving seeing Mama Pretty smile these days. The MAP program is giving these women so much hope.

Krista Davis, above in the picture, from Billings, taught the sewing class with some help from Aldonna Blaine. It was fun to walk into the room and hear all 7 treadle sewing machines pedaling along.

I wish you could have seen Tumaini, a young Maasai woman learning to sew. She is the second wife of Joshua’s dad.

She had just finished the yellow skirt and I love the look of accomplishment on her face. The Maasai people are so very poor, it is such a joy to be able to give them something that will really help them. Tumaini wrote us a letter after the class thanking God for all that Neema had done for her and her village. Yes, it made me cry.

Maria, above in the blue, is a tall Maasai lady and one of our widows in the Neema MAP program. She is a leader in a group of widows whom Maria, our MAP director, is trying to help. We are excited that Maasai Maria will be able to teach the other widows how to sew. Elesifa, the mother of our triplet girls is also pictured above. In the photo below she is pointing to her triplet girls as babies when we kept them at Neema for 2 years.

Zainabu, another young widow with her small baby, also took the sewing class. It is hard enough to learn to sew with a treadle sewing machine much less with a baby strapped to your back – or front if the baby is still nursing! We are so proud of this young woman and I think she was quite proud of herself as well. She had just finished making the skirt she is wearing.

As you can tell we are so excited about the MAP program, Mothers Against Poverty, and we would love for you to be a part of that program. You can come volunteer to teach something, – anything – that will help these lion hearted women of Africa make money, or you can give so we can buy chicken coops and sewing machines and vegetable stands, and used clothing businesses and computers, etc.

But please remember that if you want your donation to be tax deductible you cannot specify that it is for a specific individual, only to the MAP program. The IRS is quite picky about that.

Below are some of the women who finished sewing their skirts in Krista’s sewing class. Bless you Debbie and Krista and your helpers! You were awesome.

The first women’s seminars in the new building began each day with prayer and worship. You will enjoy hearing the women sing in the video below. It is an incredible thing that we get to be involved in a program like this. Come volunteer and join us!! Go to www.neemavillage.org

Love and Blessings, Dorris and Michael