God of Surprises!

Who would've ever thought when I wrote my last blog-entrance that I would write an update like this today????

I certainly didn't! 

And I certainly also didn't expect to be silent for so long, but hey, LIFE is happenin' around here and
 a whole lot of amazing stuff that just puts blogging on the back burner.

When I was in Uganda for Praise's wedding in January,
I met up with Willy (see last post) and found out that he was looking for a job,
besides the small business he'd started.

at the wedding

I also met up with the staff from our Hope In Villages+ program and as we were talking about the way forward with getting the children's caregivers started into micro-businesses, we all came to realise that the next phase would require the help of somebody that's trained in business.

Here you can see some of the ladies singing and dancing for me, thanking the sponsors:

Long story short - Willy agreed to work with us and has done a fabulous job in the last few months, with the bonus that he gets a salary, which helps him support a whole bunch of people. 

He even turned down an offer from the university to lecture (with a much higher salary) as he had already committed himself to our project.

What an amazing young man he is!

He LOVES what he does as it is his passion to help impoverished communities get out of poverty through business and I can tell that he really cares for these ladies and wants to help them.

Willy with some of the women

During our last Skype-call Willy told me about the amazing time he had as he was visiting some of the ladies one by one to mentor them in their newly started (or boosted) business due to the loans they had received the week prior.

(They also have a savings-scheme going)

Several people testified to him about the change they had seen in the women since they'd started to come to 'those meetings at the YWAM-base':

Abusive and alcoholic before - now loving, sober, singing songs and doing their work.

Then he was intercepted by a group of men who wanted him to share from the Bible, as they also had noticed a change going on in their community through the women.

They were encouraged about businesses starting up now, too.
Not so long ago, the only businesses in their community were alcohol-production.

With Willy as the first male figure in the program, they were so eager to listen to anything he had to say and he carefully shared from the Bible and led them to the Lord.

They even assured him that they were going to start going to church.

How about that for change through some loving investment?!!

This is just the beginning, but oh - how exciting!!!

Here are some more photos:

first sprouts of HOPE coming through the ground in our garlic project that is to serve as a pilot- and training-project for the women - also hoping to make enough profit to keep employing somebody to keep mentoring women in their businesses

a couple of months later - doing well through "Farming God's Way"

one-on-one mentoring of one of 25 who have received loans so far

just a week after the giving out of loans - a new kiosk for selling veggies

GO, GOD, GOOOOO!!!!

You - and only YOU - can change communities!

One person at a time!

YEAH!!!