Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her,"Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
Many were impacted by the story blogged on September 22nd
about a young lady resorting to prostitution to feed her two young girls. Although Lifeline began as an organization
bringing relief to Haiti by meeting the basic needs of children, they have
expanded to offer sustainable change to adults and communities as well through
the trade school and other programs.
The young lady of the Sept. 22nd blog is named Kettma St.
Pierre. After talking to Donald, the
three of us girls: Michelle, Adrian and Candice decided to work with Kettma,
not just on her immediate needs but for a better future for her and her
children.
When Kettma came to us, we addressed the immediate needs of food and
medical care. Kettma had TB but could
not afford her medicine so we bought it for her. Her baby girl Jenima had been very sick and
one day was even in and out of consciousness.
We prayed for healing and sent money with Kettma for her to take the
baby to the clinic. A few days passed
before we were able to do a follow-up with Kettma but before we even called
her, she came to our door to tell us Jenima was well! She hadn’t even had to buy medicine or get
further tests, she just got better.
Kettma said it was our prayers that healed Jenima.
We figured out with Osmy how much rice and beans we could give her to
last a month. Each time she came to us,
we gave her tap-tap money since she lives a few miles from Lifeline.
Our first few visits met the most pressing needs and if that was all we
did, we were likely to see her a few months down the road once again resorting
to prostitution to feed her family. So
we began to work on a long-term plan.
There are no jobs open at Lifeline so we couldn’t give her a job. But just as we began brainstorming microloans
and business ideas, Kettma broke in and said she had an idea. Through Celissa translating, she explained
that she wanted to start a small store selling used clothes. She could buy the clothes in Port au Prince
and sell them here in her village. All
she requested was a loan to start up.
With the help of Donald and Christian Bunse, who sees this as the first
of many such projects with women like Kettma, we came up with a plan.
We first required that she get an HIV test and bring it back to us
before we continued working with her so that we could know what needs had to be
addressed. She took weeks to bring us
the test so we were very worried that she tested positive and was ashamed. When she brought us the unopened test
results, we held our breath; we had been praying and meeting with Kettma for
over a month and had heard there were rumors about her having HIV because of
her rapid weight loss. We opened the
test from Sada Clinic and have never been so happy to see the word
“negative”.
Next we drafted and translated an official loan contract. We met with Kettma two days ago to go over
the loan and terms of the contract. We
could provide the loan and she would pay back the specified amount each
month. Her mother and grandmother, both
widows, were present to hear. Her mother
said she was so thankful for this opportunity for Kettma and wished there were
more people like us to help young women and widows. We later met with her pastor. We are aware that the issue is more than just
financial and that she needs spiritual accountability to grow and succeed. Her pastor said he’s known her all her life
and is so thankful we are helping her.
He prayed over her and promised to continue watching over her as her
spiritual father. He asked us if there
was a way we could help other girls in Kettma’s situation. We said this kind of work is new to us but we
will continue to meet and pray together that God will provide a way for us to
help more girls like Kettma.
Yesterday we took Kettma to the market in Port au Prince to get some
things to start the store. She chose to
buy nice shoes to resell since around Christmas time people like to get new
shoes. Later we’ll take her back to buy
some boxes of used clothes to sell as well.
It has been exciting to start this journey with Kettma. It hasn’t been easy and his has taken some
work to instill some foreign values that she seems to have gone without. Such as not asking for things from multiple
people or sneaking extra shoes from our storage room (she tried to sit on them
so we didn’t see). She is a good girl
and is trying but I think she’s been in survival mode for so long its gonna
take a while for her to develop the pride of working for herself. Right now she calls us her mamas and says she
won’t do anything without permission.
This is better than stealing from us I think but we hope as she grows
and learns, we can be more like partners and less like parents. Keep praying with us for Kettma and for other
girls like her we hope to reach in the future with similar microloans and discipleship
programs. We do have a sewing class and
are starting a paiting class soon and both of thses will help to provide women
with a skill they can market. Praise God
for creativity and new opportunites.
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