Miles In Missions

Brothel Ladies, Blessing is on the far right.

Meet Blessing. While I was in the US earlier this year a few of our missionaries on the ground stumbled onto a brothel in the town. They met several times with the prostitutes there and built some relationships. A local Pastor, Pastor Wale, came alongside them and was able to get a few ladies to leave the brothel. The church  found them places to live for free and even gave them money to help start small businesses. Blessing was one of the ladies that choose to leave the brothel.

When I arrived back to Nigeria in May, Pastor Wale asked if he could enroll Blessings’ two children in CARE Africa. Currently the children lived in another town with grandma and he wanted to reunite them with their mother.  Without a guarantee of an education the pastor was concerned for the boys. We immediately said yes and the next week Blessing was reunited with her two boys

Blessing right after being reunited with her two boys.

The following Saturday she came to CARE Africa. When she walked in the door she started crying and begging us to take the kids from her. “Please take my children! This is too much for me!” She said the money she was making selling beans and rice was just not enough to support her and the two boys. She said that everything was much harder than she had imagined it would be. We explained to her we were not an orphanage and prayed with her. We prayed for God to give her the strength to handle her new life and not revert back to the old one.

A few weeks ago I went to check on Blessing and the boys. We sat and talked about the upcoming school year. Once all contracts were signed and everything was understood by all parties I asked how her business was doing. She said it was still the same but she was managing. I asked her if now, a month later, she still wanted to give Friday and Samuel to me and she laughed and said “No”. I told her how proud we were of her for managing and not going back to what she knew and what was easy.

Last week at back to school meeting at CARE Africa.

I then asked her what she needed to help her business do better. She said she needed to be able to buy in bulk.  If she could buy more than just a days supplies she would have more profit and thus could invest more into her business. Emma  and I started calculating what a whole bag of rice would cost and all the supplies she would need and it came up to N17,000 ($80). I opened my planner and showed Emma what I had written on my to do’s for that day. “Deposit N18,500 from craft sales from volunteer team.” The day before I had sold N18,500 in crafts from CARE Africa to a recent team that visited Egbe. I love it when God shows off! I asked Emma if he felt like we needed to talk about it more or if he felt led to go ahead and help her. He just smiled and said “It looks like we are just suppose to go ahead and do this.” God’s timing is so amazing.

Emma explained all this to Blessing in Yoruba to make sure she knew all the events that led up to her getting this money. I wanted her to understand how none of this could have been a coincidence. Emma explained how God planned for us to visit her that day and to have this money in our pocket from sales yesterday. I looked her in the eyes and said “God loves you Blessing! He thinks you are special! He has chosen you!” I loved getting to see the shy smile on her face as I spoke these truths to her. You could just see in her face that no one had ever told her this.

Samuel on the Left and Friday on the right.

I am so blessed to get to watch God change lives in Egbe. Thank you for continuing to support Miles in Missions and CARE Africa so we can continue to show God’s love to people that have never been shown love. God loves you! He thinks your special! He has chosen you!

Friday and Samuel are Blessings’ children’s names. Friday is currently sponsored but Samuel is not. If God is leading you to help Samuel, click CARE Africa and sign up to send Samuel to school for only $35 a month.

Samuel pounding yam!