At the center of an ancient valley in Kenya, the Nyamasaria River brings to life everything for miles. The flow sustains crops, livestock, and the residents of surrounding villages. 

Next to this river is where Nancy* and her husband began a shared life. Here, they planted their first ears of corn, built their first home, and started their family of 12.

"It was a normal life with my husband and all our children helping to support the family,” Nancy said, reflecting on her past. “Life was easy then.”

But the area is also where Nancy also experienced death.

Today, she lives in a 14-by-14-foot mud home with her 12-year-old son, Peter,* and her stepson, Philip.* Two of her daughters are married with families of their own. Everyone else in her family passed away. 

Losing family 

In the Nyamasaria River valley communities, children are seen as a blessing, and men sometimes take multiple wives in order to have larger families. As the extended family grew, Nancy also witnessed it decline under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Symptoms of the virus began to present themselves with greater regularity in her husband, then among his wives — including Nancy. In 2004, her husband’s immune system failed and AIDS took his life.

“Immediately after my husband died, things started to become very difficult,” she said. “I had to engage in casual labor on other people’s farms and sell food from mine to generate income for my family."

One by one, the virus claimed her husband’s other wives, and Nancy became the sole caregiver to their offspring as well as her own. The tragedy didn’t stop with the adults, though.

“The younger children were becoming ill, too,” Nancy said.

Over time, Nancy cared for many children and then watched as death came to all but four of her children and stepchildren.

The fear and stigma surrounding the virus made Nancy an outcast in her community. Although she was desperate to provide for her family, Nancy was refused work over and over and again.

Through tears, Nancy shares about the devastation in her life.

"My relatives called me names, thinking I was the one who infected my husband and killed their relations, but it wasn’t me,” she said. “The church I used to attend rejected me too when they heard the stories my relatives told. I never felt such brokenness and rejection in all my life. I had nowhere to turn.”

Rejected by her family, friends, neighbors, and even her church, Nancy thought, The only thing left for me to do [is] to die.

On the side of the vulnerable

Along the Nyamasaria, stories like Nancy’s are too numerous to count. In a community filled with the widows and orphans of AIDS, grandmothers care for grandchildren, stepmothers provide for stepchildren, and neighbors care for non-related children in an increasingly fatherless society.

In response, local Nazarene churches have been partnering with Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and Nehemiah's Restoration, a faith-based nonprofit organization, to help women who have been widowed by AIDS and children who have been orphaned by the disease find health and stability.

Kenya’s local churches play a vital role in raising awareness about the plight of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

“The message the church is spreading is, ‘Though we cannot do everything for OVCs, everyone can do something,’” said Samuel Oketch, NCM coordinator in East Africa. “The church identifies volunteers to offer psycho-social support to children in the community, and NCM supports them as they raise awareness.”

The nutritional services, healthcare, legal aid, psycho-social, educational, and spiritual support provided through the partnership of the church, NCM, and Nehemiah’s Restoration have been valuable in the short-term, but providing for widowed women and children without fathers requires long-term solutions, too. The partnership has been working to create small business opportunities for those who have been rejected by their communities and, therefore, have no way to gain employment.

“There are times in everyone's lives when the world around them is shattered and they end up ‘out on a limb’ in need of assistance,” said Rob Bollinger, founder and president of Nehemiah's Restoration. “It is our job to support the limb until they can get off the limb themselves.”

Project Book Bag

While Nancy and other women have the desire and ability to work, opportunities are scarce. Many are able to make jewelry, paint, sew garments, or produce other handcrafted items, but they have no funds to begin a small business, and there’s virtually no local market for their products.

The solution? Project Book Bag, a cooperative effort, provides those affected by HIV/AIDS with a chance to earn income. Local NCM staff teach the women to sew the bags and add artistic paintings, as well as how to purchase the needed materials. Nehemiah's Restoration funds the purchase of materials, pays each worker’s salary, and then ships the bags to the U.S., where they are sold. The project was chosen in collaboration with community members, particularly women caring for orphaned children, as many already had the skills needed to make the bags.

“There is no other group in the community creating something like this [project],” Oketch said. “It creates good income for the caregivers to help provide for their families.”

As a result of the partnership, about 400 orphans and vulnerable children now have essential needs met, including food and nutrition, psycho-social support, shelter and care, child rights, healthcare, education, and economic opportunities.

Nancy learned about Project Book Bag through a pastor at her local Nazarene church. Through it, she has been able to provide food for her children and send them to school, and she has also been able to reconnect with her extended family.

 “My relatives have started to see me as somebody again,” Nancy said. “Some of them now attend [church] with me as I lead worship in my Nazarene church."

Oketch is grateful for the changes he has seen throughout the community.

“The children of those caregivers look healthy, and we have seen caregivers who were initially un-churched start attending," Oketch said. "Nancy is now dedicated to church activities because she has seen love and compassion."

*Names have been changed.

--Republished with permission from NCM magazine, Summer 2015 edition