Giving Life To Widows and Orphans

I met many beautiful women in Uganda.  There was a group of Karamojong women, all of them single and most were AIDS widows, that I spent some time with that didn't even know how many children they were raising.  They said there were "too many to count" when referring to how many children they had there.  Each of them were raising their own children, and most of them were trying to raise someone else's that had died.

There are groups like this all over the country.  Trying desperately to do the best that they can with what they have which is often times pretty much not a whole lot.  When I say they "don't have a whole lot", I don't mean that they have a low paying job and their kids don't have a change of clothes or toys.  I mean they have no job at all.  I mean their kids don't have any clothes, or what they have are rags.  Or clean water.  The only water they have sometimes kills them.  And their babies.  There homes are made of mud and trash.

But these women I met have great talent.  They are amazingly talented.  Everywhere we went we met women that had something to sell.  They don't beg for you to give them something.  They spend countless hours making beautiful things to sell so that they can feed their families.  I can't even remember all of the things I saw that women made there.  They weave gorgeous baskets out of banana leaves.  They make amazing rugs out of other plant leaves and carve little animals out of wood.  

And... they make beads out of paper.

We visited one ministry that teaches women to make this jewelry so that they may leave their lives of prostitution and still be able to make money to feed their children.  While they do this, they get to hear about Jesus.

These beads are made out of paper from magazines.  Some are made of paper that they make from acacia trees.  They are beautiful.  

Would you like to have some for yourself?  You would?  Awesome!

I have lots of them.  In every color you can think of and many multi-colored strands.  Seriously, they are so pretty.  I will add more pictures as soon as I can take some.

For a $20 (tax-deductible) donation to Visiting Orphans, you can choose a paper bead necklace.  Or 5 or 10 for $20 each.  :-)  Part of the donation will go toward the cost of my trip, and the other part goes toward the AWESOME  things Visiting Orphans does to help widows and orphans all over the world.

If you want some beads, please comment here with your contact info or email me at allie1111@me.com.  If you are local, I can come by and show you what I've got.  If you see something in the pictures that you like, let me know!!

If you are not interested in jewelry but you still would like to help, you can make a tax-deductible donation toward my trip at www.visitingorphans.org.  Just click the 'donate' tab, then choose my trip from the drop-down menu.  OCTOBER 12-24, 2011  Then choose 'yes' that you would like to specify a specific team member, and enter my name.  ALLISON FULLER

Thank You All!!