“I was always praying for someone to come and hold my hand.”<\/strong><\/em> I couldn’t help but think of my nine-year-old daughter. I tried to envision her living alone on the streets and being responsible for caring for two other human beings. It was too painful of a picture to hold onto for more than a few seconds in my mind.<\/p>\nMargaret proudly noted that ZOE was instrumental to transforming her health and giving her confidence. Through ZOE’s program, she learned about her rights as a young woman and how to enforce them – this seemed to be especially important to her. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her to protect herself and her siblings while living on the street. Today, Margaret feels strong and she is respected in her community. She holds her head high and is so proud of her accomplishments.<\/p>\n
During my conversation with her, she joked about how the boys in her community respect her so much that they sometimes refuse to approach her because they feel intimidated by her confidence. I asked her a question that I often ask my adult daughters, “What qualities will you look for in a husband?” It became obvious to me that the ZOE program had helped to change Margaret’s answer to this question. She replied by saying that she dreams of marrying a man who is business minded and willing to work hard for what he earns. She said that he must also be understanding and respectful.<\/p>\n
It always causes me to pause when I hear the ZOE children talk about their dreams before they become part of the program. Margaret dreamed for someone to come alongside her and hold her hand through life. Simply her dream was to feel cared for and loved.<\/p>\n
The seed of Margaret’s dream was planted in a prayer. A faithful ZOE partner then watered it. It grew through her hard work and faithfulness. Margaret’s dreams have grown into many healthy relationships and multiple businesses. She now feels so empowered that she can’t possibly keep it to herself. Margaret’s financial contribution is an act of worship, helping other children find the path to their dreams.<\/p>\n
380 million children living in extreme poverty will rely on charity forever.<\/h3>\n$9 a month can change that.<\/h3>\n
A monthly gift of $9 over 3 years empowers one orphan out of poverty. How many children can you give lasting sustainable change?<\/p>\n
[button url=”https:\/\/www.wearezoe.org\/give-monthly\/” style=”primary” text=”Learn More”]\n
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Margaret in 2016 when she first started her business<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI\u00a0am happy to give part of what God has blessed me with through ZOE. I am now empowered to help others in my community and beyond. I have learned that it is more blessed to give than to receive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":47454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[71,345,66,68,97],"country":[24],"yst_prominent_words":[1102,142,130,482,479,154,691,688,186,472,497,490,690,689,143,521,480,126,433,457],"class_list":["post-47457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-zoe-children","tag-child-rights","tag-empowerment","tag-entrepreneur","tag-multiply","tag-partner","country-kenya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47457"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=47457"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=47457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}