Introducing....

....the young moms!  These are the lovely ladies with whom I will be working in January.  For those of you who don't know, I will begin holding classes with them in various skills.  As of now, these classes will be centered around the kitchen, but I hope in the future we may be able to dabble in a few other things such as flower making (as in crepe/tissue paper flowers) or crocheting (if possible...materials are a problem).  We will see.

Our purpose in doing this is to provide these moms with tools to enable them to escape exploitation and provide for themselves and their kids.  They all face a rather high risk future.  They have a child, but no husband to help support them.  They come from poverty, have a low education, few skills, and live in an area plagued by chronic drought (no garden = no self-sustainable food source)...its not a good situation.  Pretty soon some guy comes along and offers to help...oh, but you have to have a child for him too.  Soon after that, he's moving on...and now you have two.  You're even more desperate when the next guy comes along...and then you have three.

This is the all too common story, and we hope to give these young women the option of escape.  

Not only that, but through a study we will be doing together, I pray that we will all grow in our knowledge of who God is; I pray that they will understand who Jesus Christ is, the great value that he places upon them, the healing He brings, and the peace, joy, and hope they can have in Him.  I pray they will pass on Truth to their kids.

So far, there are four young ladies.  So without further ado:

Rosita and her daughter, Bertha (pronounced BER-ta)

Cerilia and her son, Maickel

Fleurillia and her daughter, Abigael

Mona and her son, Youbensley

This past week, the girls came with their children.  I took coloring pages and pencils, along with some cotton balls, plastic wrap, and glue to dress up the pictures.  I suspected it might be so, but the moms didn't want to let the kids touch the papers.  They didn't want them to ruin them!  So, while the mothers were coloring, I played with the kids and took some pictures. 

Happily munching crackers

Happily munching pencils

 

At least Bertha got to do some coloring.