Thank you cards from the Children’s Home

This inspires me.

“In my opinion the most significant thing that can be done to cure extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities — educationally, economically, and socially.” Richard Stearns.

There is a saying in Africa: If you educate a man you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman you educate a nation.” When a girl is educated, her income potential increases, maternal and infant mortality rate decreases, and the percentage of HIV infections (especially in Africa) is lowered. An educated girl is more likely to acquire skills to improve the
economic stability of her family and she is also more apt to ensure that her daughters receive an education too. Educating girls pays dividend after dividend to the whole community.” A quote within a quote from Richard Stearns Book “The Hole In Our Gospel.

As Chuck and I  travel to the nations, my role is to encourage, educate and empower women and young girls to change their world for the better.  I know that inside of every women there is a strength to love, to nurture, to rise up and to overcome. It is our joy to educate the girls and women of this world to become all they can be and bring a better life for those who follow.

Now to introduce you to another one of my wonderful children of Kenya……

Benta Judith,

 Hi! I hope you are fine. As for me I’m doing great and fine. The main reason for writing this, is to tell you how my first term in high school was. I would like to tell you that it was fine and good. I saw God’s favor upon me, I found new friends, whom I shared a lot with. I was also made a representative of different organizations which was very fine. We are doing different subjects apart from the primary ones and therefore I ‘m putting in more effort to catch up with them. We did our first end term exam and I did my best and got a total grade of “A-” but still working hard to score higher. Thank you for your sponorship and may God bless the works of your hands. I love you all and may God bless you.

Benta is a remarkable young women. She has been in the children’s home since the beginning with her older sister Millicent. Her mother, who is not well, lives in Northern Kenya in extreme poverty with several other siblings.  When Benta heard that there was no money to continue their education she wrote……

I write this to let you know how I had felt earlier when Pastor Victor called us into the office and told us that we were going back to our living relatives. I felt my life shortened, I felt very sad that I would have to drop out of school in 8th grade. I had seen how the lives of those 8th grade drop-outs were. I began to cry for fear of being one of them. I felt I had been abandoned. I fully counted myself as a house girl to somebody. I couldn’t eat, I would sit on my bed and start weeping and wondering. My mum is helpless she could not take me to high school, where will I go? Would I have happy moments again in my life, like at the Father’s House Children’s Home? Then a speaker came to the Father’s House Church, I went up for prayer for a miracle. I started meditating on Jeremiah 29:11, I changed all my thoughts and told God if He is the holder of my future I will not fear anything. I began to tell the other children to thank Pastor Victor and Eunice for the care they have given. Some stayed in fear because our families were notified and any minute they may show up to take us away.
Then the great Day came December 12th 2011, when Mum Connie told us the good news of being sponsored to high school. You returned my hope of becoming a great person in the future. I am so thankful for those who have kept their hands to sponsor us. I have seen the miracle I was praying for. I promise to work very hard in high school to reach my destiny and to help others who were like me. No more fear. I am 17 going to high school and I want to be in international public relations.

So back to the quote at the top of the post… Here is a African girl who wants to be in International Public Relations and helps others who are like her!  Living proof of what happens when you open your heart to the world around you and say “yes I will do something!”

My Dear Benta,

You are an inspiration to so many people. I don’t know how many times I have quoted you by saying, “God, if He is the holder of my future I will not fear anything.”  What have you to fear?

Connie Coggins