“It’s my first lamb!” Mariya Halapi was quite touched yesterday when Mama Iddi gave her a little lamb. I think we were all touched by yesterday’s events when one of our MAP widows, Mama Iddi and her handicap granddaughter got to move into their new home. It was quite a day.
Mama Iddi has been keeping her 12 year old abandoned granddaughter in her home where part of the wall had fallen in and she had hung an old tarp over the hole. There were large cracks in the back of the house and so many holes in the roof that she walked in mud inside the house when it rained. It was unsafe to say the least.
We had been out to visit Mama Iddi with some friends in August and were so saddened by her living conditions that we decided Neema, through the generosity of friends and the MAP program, could help.
We had planned at first to shore up the house, patch the cracks, put on a new tin roof and paint the house. But when our builders got started they realized none of the house was worth saving. So they bulldozed it and started from ground up. We took Mama Iddi and her granddaughter out yesterday to see the completed house for the first time. I realize this may not look like much to you but to this widow living in extreme poverty it is a mansion.
While the builders were working on her house for a couple of months, we had moved Mama Iddi and her granddaughter to a room down the street from Neema. We had also started her in a chicken/egg business through Neema’s MAP program. So the first thing we had to do yesterday was move the chickens. That was fun, feathers flapping and all!
All the neighbors came out to help including this handsome young man. He said he remembered a bible class we had done at his house a few years ago. Emily Broadbent, look how he has grown!
After getting all the chickens together we loaded up the trailer and our car along with the squawking chickens, the chicken coop, volunteers and Mama Iddi with everything she owned in the world and drove to her new home. She had not seen it painted nor the inside of the house, so we were all pretty excited for her.
She looked around at the metal windows, the creamy yellow walls and the smooth cement floor and all she could say was Wow, Wow! I felt like we were on that TV show where they blindfold people and reveal their remodeled house and everyone cries!
After the Wows! were over, we prayed with her and asked God to bless the house and her family with peace and that no harm would come to her while she lived there. Then the builders and volunteers all gathered round and sang, “Mungu ni Pendo”, an old African song that means God is Love.
We got the hugs yesterday from Mama Iddi but we know those hugs and blessings were really for those of you who made this new home possible for her. We love for our volunteers like Sophie Line (pictured below) and Linda Johnson, (she was helping with the chickens in one of the pictures above), to see the Goodness of God at work in Africa.
Thank you dear hearts for your loving care of widows and orphans. I think surely nothing is closer to God’s heart than these. We are so grateful that every day we get to be Administrators of His Abounding Grace.
Mama Iddi has been keeping her 12 year old abandoned granddaughter in her home where part of the wall had fallen in and she had hung an old tarp over the hole. There were large cracks in the back of the house and so many holes in the roof that she walked in mud inside the house when it rained. It was unsafe to say the least.
We had been out to visit Mama Iddi with some friends in August and were so saddened by her living conditions that we decided Neema, through the generosity of friends and the MAP program, could help.
We had planned at first to shore up the house, patch the cracks, put on a new tin roof and paint the house. But when our builders got started they realized none of the house was worth saving. So they bulldozed it and started from ground up. We took Mama Iddi and her granddaughter out yesterday to see the completed house for the first time. I realize this may not look like much to you but to this widow living in extreme poverty it is a mansion.
All the neighbors came out to help including this handsome young man. He said he remembered a bible class we had done at his house a few years ago. Emily Broadbent, look how he has grown!
After getting all the chickens together we loaded up the trailer and our car along with the squawking chickens, the chicken coop, volunteers and Mama Iddi with everything she owned in the world and drove to her new home. She had not seen it painted nor the inside of the house, so we were all pretty excited for her.
She looked around at the metal windows, the creamy yellow walls and the smooth cement floor and all she could say was Wow, Wow! I felt like we were on that TV show where they blindfold people and reveal their remodeled house and everyone cries!
After the Wows! were over, we prayed with her and asked God to bless the house and her family with peace and that no harm would come to her while she lived there. Then the builders and volunteers all gathered round and sang, “Mungu ni Pendo”, an old African song that means God is Love.
