Amazing Gift

 In preparations for coming to Africa, Susie would facetime or talk to me every few days. We were making sure everything that needed to come would come. Susie mentioned the money she was bringing for the Nativities that my siblings were buying from a wood carver here in Accra and trying to decide if cedis or dollars would be easier for us and for the wood carver who actually has a home and family in Nigeria. She mentioned another large amount and asked if I wanted it put into the bank to draw out or to just bring dollars.

OH MY WORD! You just can't guess what it was! My sister in law Sherri and my brother Dean had collected hundreds of dollars to use for people's businesses and livelihoods here in Accra! Susie said they had collected money from other ladies in the ward and she had this big envelope to bring. I promptly cried.

Then my brain assimilated the fact that the idea that had been percolating but has had no place to go could actually happen. Petra, our apartment manager and I, have had some chats since I first got here about the empowerment of women and what that would look like. This part of Africa is very much a man's world, though women who bring in their own income have children who do better. Andrew had told me about his mission president who had a business of making loans out to certain groups of women who would start or expand businesses and then pay the money back for a new set of women to use in their businesses in South America. They were run by women in the same town and accountable to each other. I had been squirreling away a few cedis here and there to put together an investment in Petra's Fund for her to help out women she knows.

The interesting thing is the prayer I had asked (same kind of prayer happened in the Philippines) for Jeffrey to feel okay about this new project I wanted to spend a lot of money on. The last time I had this kind of prayer our 401K expanded rapidly and he was ok. I kind of figured something like that would happen again. Nope. This time it was an actual donation from family and their friends! I am humbled and awed how this whole thing works.

I am getting the Self Reliance missionaries involved hoping the money will be paid forward for more than one use. That happens if the ladies know how to grow their business. 

My heart is full and running over.