We have only four women left to sponsor!

We would like to thank so many of you for sponsoring a woman in Burundi through “A New Beginning.” Because of your response, we have only four women left to sponsor!

While in Burundi, we saw the desperate plight of so many women, but we also saw how the love and innovation on one African woman was making a difference. Peace Nihorimbere runs the sewing program designed to give women a place in God’s family and a skill that will allow them to provide for themselves and their families. Peace is no stranger to difficulty. She went through three different rounds of genocide. Members of her family were killed before she escaped to Canada. Peace remained in Canada for many years, safe from the past, when one day God called her back to Burundi to help her people.

Women in Burundi live in challenging circumstances. Civil war and genocide have taken parents, husbands and children away from them. They live in the second poorest country in the world. Without dignity or value, poverty, hunger, disease, and homelessness have become their inheritance.

When the woman you sponsor enters the program, nineteen others join her. Twenty women work together in the morning, another twenty in the afternoon. Each day she is taught how to sew, first simple skills, and then gradually how to make clothes. She also learns what it feels like to be loved again—by her teacher, her fellow students, and by her Heavenly Father.

By the time she graduates, she will have gone through many changes. With her new skills and her new sewing machine, she can make the clothing that will supply her own needs and provide an ongoing livelihood. But she will now see herself as a worthy part of the community and a loved child of God. We have reports of some of these women re-marrying, something never heard of before.

Thank you for caring enough to give. Here are the answers to a few common questions. If you have other questions, please let us know.

Q: Do I keep sponsoring a woman year after year?

A: No. Your sponsorship will take a woman though the entire 10-month program and provide her with a new sewing machine upon graduation.

Q: What kind of sewing machine does she get?

A: The sewing machines look like the old peddle powered things your grandmother used. But they are new and work quite will in a country where most people don’t even have electricity.

Q: Why is a meal included in the sponsorship?

A: For many of these women, this will be their only meal. We have discovered that without adequate nutrition, it’s hard to learn. A good meal gives them the energy to learn, interact, and look to a hopeful future.

Q: Can I sponsor another woman next year?

A: Of course—there are currently 300 women on the waiting list! We hope this will become very important to you and you will want to help other women with “A New Beginning.” But if you only sponsor this one woman, we thank you—you have changed a life.

. . . and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

                                                instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness

                                                instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

                                                instead of a spirit of despair.

 They will be called oaks of righteousness,

            a planting of the LORD

                                                for the display of his splendor.

Isaiah 61:3