About a year ago, a young woman, named Florence, attended our widows' meeting. She shared her story with many tears. She had come to the city from a small village to finish high school. She took up with a guy, they started living together, had a child, and in God's mercy this young couple found their way into one of our churches and accepted Christ. A few months later he died. She told us that for many months she could not even leave the tiny room that she and her husband had been renting. She lacked just one year to finish high school, but had no means of paying for her schooling. Even paying the rent and food were difficult.
When I heard her testimony, I asked her to come and see me. I remember her first visit, how she dripped with sadness and depression. She could not lift her head to look at me and spoke so quietly. I wasn't sure how she even had the strength to walk to my house. We started to help her with some money for rent and food and then began to think what her next step should be. Many young women in this situation take to prostitution. I encouraged her to get a place in school and it was then that she told me that she wanted to be a teacher. This is not easy to do. You have to take three different exams; an oral, a written, and the last one is for physical endurance. I knew she had been a good student, but she was so thin and worn out from sadness, I wasn't sure that she could pass the physical exam.
But she came today completely transformed. She had passed the entrance exam! Her child had also been accepted into the primary school on the teaching college's campus. And we are able to provide tuition, books, and some living costs for her. She told us that some in her courtyard had been making fun of her for not going after guys. They told her that she was just going to rot in her house if she didn't get out and meet a guy. But our Lord had a different plan for Florence. First in bringing her to Himself and now in opening this door for college. In just two years she should be able to get a job with the government or maybe even at one of our Christian schools. He continues to be our God who supplies all of our needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. To God be all the glory.
from Esther Schaeffer, working with widows in Burkina Faso
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