We first introduced you to Jolima and her mother Elizabeth, late last year. Elizabeth is a single mother, widowed many years ago. She is in poor health due to HIV which her late husband infected her with. HIV claimed her husband, and 4 other children.
Elizabeth suffers to survive day by day. Her only income comes from walking for hours into the “bush” (woods) and collecting fallen limbs and sticks, carrying them for hours back into town, and then selling them for firewood to people in the village around the area where she stays. 9 hours of work can provide the equivalent of 75 cents and that is all she has to survive on.
Suffering from HIV means there are days her body is just not able to do the only work she is capable which leads to more hunger and suffering.
Elizabeth has made WellSpring the family to Jolima, knowing she may not have many more years of survival and she doesn’t trust any of her extended family to not traffic or take advantage of Jolima.
In short, Elizabeth has become our family. The team in Zambia shares whatever we are able, from the physical to sharing Jesus, anything we can do to help lift her burden. Elizabeth receives a month food gift including maize flour, cooking oil, sugar, tea, and vegetables.
During a recent visit, our team became aware of a larger need. Elizabeth stays in a mud brick home with a thatched roof which her husband built before he passed. The roof has disintegrated and as we head to the rainy season later this year the roof simply can not help hold out the rains and even worse – mud bricks without proper covering will wash away in the torrential rains Zambia receives. So the failing roof will lead to the entire home failing.
Please pray about how God would provide for us to help Elizabeth – our desire is to help bring Elizabeths home into proper shape, and to bless her with a few additional basic human needs that would truly change her life. In total to really impact her situation including the roof repairs – moving her to a sheet metal roof – the cost could be close to $750.
If you feel led to help with this critical situation please reach out to Ward for more details.
This has truly helped to lift her burden and we have watched her health improve.