Meet Mary

In talking to my parents yesterday, I realized I still haven't told you about any of the women that I get to work with here, so in this post you get to meet Mary.

Mary is caring for 9 orphans and as you can tell from this picture (she's the one with the cloth on her head in the middle), she's not exactly a young woman!  We had gone to visit her at her home last month and had only met two of the orphan-women that she cares for.  This week, we met seven of the people she cares for and there were two that were at school.  While it is clear she has a lot on her plate here, that's not abnormal of the women we support.

What I was most impressed by with her was her positive attitude toward life and her responsibilities in life.  She doesn't know much English, so Madam Mwalweni had to translate everything for me but Mary was saying that she is just using what God has given her to make ends meet.  Since the last time we visited her, she had started a new side business to be able to more fully meet the needs of all the people she cares for.  As we were finishing our visit with her she said that she will continue to work hard because God loves her and it was clear that she felt that God's love of her will give her the strength she needs as long as she does her part.  What an amazing woman!