continued from You Give Them Something to Eat, February 15, 2008
The Lord wants me to start an income generating project for these girls to keep them from having sex to have their basic needs me. Where did I start? I got on the internet and typed something genius into Google like “making cards in Africa for money”. A website came up 80 Rwandan refugees making greeting cards and selling them over the internet. There was a link that said “email the founder” so I emailed him and told him what God was calling me to do and asked him some questions, honestly hoping he would discourage me from getting into it (I’m scared, this is so much bigger than me). Instead I got an incredibly inspiring message from this missionary encouraging me to do this. His first step when he arrived in Rwanda (from England) was to find a local artist who could teach others to make the cards.
So I began a hunt for the artist in the local tourist markets and all the people who were selling the cards had not made the cards. ALL of the cards were made by people living in other African countries who just sold them to the shops in Swaziland. Frustrated, I got back in the car and started telling my friend, Thandie, about God’s idea for the greeting cards and told her I was looking for a local artist. (To give God more glory, it was random that Thandie had decided this day to come along to the high school to teach the Bible Studies today).
“What about Nelile? Remember the birthday card I gave you? Nelile made that” Thandie asked. I used to go to church with Nelile but hadn’t seen her in a few months since she moved. I called Nelile and just said “God put you on my heart, meet me for dinner”.
At dinner I said “okay, let me tell you why i asked you to come…” and spilled the whole vision of the project to sustain the girls in the rural areas. Nelile looked at me emotionless the whole time i was talking and I thought she’s so not into this. I stopped talking and she just was shaking her head saying “oh my God, oh my God”…she had been fasting the week before and the Lord had been preparing her for something and as I was talking the Lord was confirming that this was it. He had given her specific visions and Scriptures and she was sure this is what the Lord was talking about. 4 days before my proposal she was up all night making wedding invitations and was telling the Lord “unless you send me people to help me do this, I’m giving up this card business, I can’t do it anymore”. The Holy Spirit was so present at our meeting but she asked for a week to pray about it for the Lord to confirm and I got a text message from her a week later saying “Let’s do it”.
We met yesterday for the first time and Nelile is obviously the perfect person for this. She is smart, hardworking, extremely creative and has an awesome relationship with the Lord. She sees this is not only a way for the girls to go to school and have food and clothing but to help them tap into creativity which is hindered for people who live in poverty, and even more so for people who live in a monarchy. They are told what to think and not to question it so when you ask them to come up with something on their own they don’t know what to do. This makes them think they have nothing to contribute and keeps them in a dependent state.
We are going to start with 20 girls at 1 school. I had mentioned to the Vice Principal about the project and asked her to think of 20 girls who would be vulnerable to have sex with an older man because of poverty and she said “I can’t think of any specific girls off the top of my head, they are all in need”. So I prayed that whole week that the girls would come to her and the next week she said one after another were coming to her office telling her their story…I love how God brought them.
Please pray for the initial stages of this project. 1) Profiling the girls and seeing their needs 2) scheduling training times to make the cards between my schedule, Nelile’s schedule (she’s also planning a wedding for September) and the girls schedule.
