By Jolene Eicher
She walks to the edge of town looking for wood to chop. If successful, she will have a load to carry to town to sell. She will buy food for her 6-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. It has been a while since they have had anything substantial to eat. She was thinking about her children when it happened. He was a young boy learning to drive a motorcycle so he could become okada (motorcyclists who carry passengers for hire). He lost control and she didn’t hear him coming The impact threw her to the ground causing serious injury to her body.
I am interviewing Momma Bose (pronounced “Boice a”) on June 20, 2022 – eight months after the accident. She still can’t turn her head without severe pain. She tells me that she boils water to make a hot rag for her neck. Momma Bose can no longer chop the wood that kept her family fed. If it wasn’t for C.A.R.E. Africa she doesn’t know what would have become of them. C.A.R.E has helped pay the hospital bills. They have prayed for her and provided food for her son and for her daughter, Olarinde Bose, who is in the C.A.R.E. program.
I recall when her daughter, Bose, first came to school at C.A.R.E. Africa several years ago. She was angry and she was a bully to the other kids. There were many conversations about what to do with this child that clearly liked no one and no one liked her. Momma Bose proudly tells a story of a different child today. She tells me that just this morning she witnessed Bose kneeling on her bed of flattened cardboard speaking to God in English to help her mother with the pain and not be so sad. I asked Momma Bosse why she is sad. She tells me that she and her children are facing eviction at the end of the month. I look around this one-room concrete floor that contains all she owns, a thin foam mat, a few pots, and some clothes and I ask how far behind in rent she is. “Two years” Momma Bosse quietly responds. I look to the C.A.R.E team who calculate it to be about 16,800 Niara (local currency). We are all silent.
I ask the C.A.R.E. team what can be done. “We can pray,” they say. The team gathers around Momma Bose to pray for her neck pain, for new work she can do, and for God’s provision regarding the rent. On the drive back I am thinking about the huge debt Momma Bose owes and the pending eviction. I get out my calculator to see what the conversion of 16,800 naira is to American dollars. My eyes cloud with tears as I stare at a number that is unachievable for this sweet momma – it is $28.00. My heart hurts to know that I eat out lunch with my husband for an amount that would prevent Momma Bose and her son and daughter from being evicted at the end of this month. The suffering could be eased for so little an amount. I shake my head at the wealth I never realized I have.
Your contributions to support C.A.R.E. Africa allow them to provide for those who are sick, injured, hungry, unable to find work, don’t have the fees to attend a school or are about to be evicted. Please don’t ever think you don’t have much to give. For the cost of a pizza delivery perhaps you could keep a family from becoming homeless or feed a family for months or purchase a real mattress. Whatever you can give – it is not wasted- it is like wealth for those who have so little. Please think of Momma Bose and pray for her neck to be healed so she can be pain-free. Thank you for reading.
From Executive Director, Patrice Miles. We are excited to let you know we were able to get donations for Mommy Bose’s rent and mattresses and have put her on a monthly food plan. Bose, her daughter, currently has a sponsor but would you consider sponsoring Mommy Bose so we can continue to keep her on the feeding plan and also empower her so she can start a business and be able to sustain herself one day? For $39 a month you can sponsor Mommy Bose’s feeding plan or you can donate towards her one-time need for empowerment of $300.
Sponsor Mommy Bose $39 a month or one time $ 468 here https://donate.icareafrica.org/sponsorships/mommy-bose
Donate any amount to Empower Mommy Bose here https://donorsee.com/project/15662
Miles In Missions 