“My mum and my dad both grew up on farms. So, every school holiday I got to be hissed at by grumpy geese, plopped on by cows I was trying to milk, and shirt-fronted by rams annoyed at being penned for shearing. I also got to see lots of humble, hands-on hard work. Sunrise to sunset, no matter what the weather.”
I see that same kind of humble, hands-on hard work in what Lutheran women do to help people through ALWS.
What I hope will encourage you is that the people you help, work as hard as you do. You’ll see this when you meet Marie Ndaruzaniye from Burundi.
Marie is a widow, with five children. She survived war and life in a refugee camp far from home. Now she battles poverty in the poorest province of one of the five least-developed countries on the planet.
Imagine you’re sitting down with Marie on a mat in front of the house she’s building, sharing a cup of tea she’s brewed over her open cooking fire …
“During my childhood, the war came. It was 1993. It caused problems at school. I had to stop studying and go to the refugee camp. I was 13 years old.
I went to the refugee camp alone, and my parents went somewhere else. When I was at the camp, I was so hungry. There was not enough food, so I came back to find my parents.
While the war was here, we had to sleep in the bush for two years.
We had to move from our home and take provisions, from home, and cook in the bush. Life was bad. We had no shelter, nowhere to sleep and I was always afraid of being killed at any moment.
As the war started to end, people started cultivating, but we were still afraid. I didn’t go back to school … I was afraid that if I went back and the soldiers came, what would I do?
I started helping my parents cultivating, and sometimes working for others to get some money. My parents gave me a small plot so I could grow my own food. After harvesting my beans, I could sell them and buy a few clothes.
Then I got married. Once again there was war, and we had to live in the bushes. My husband got taken by the rebels – so far away. I was very sad – so much sorrow. After one week with the rebels, he came back, but then the rebels would come and just take our livestock. Sometimes people would be just walking and they would be beaten by the rebels. This happened to my husband and some of my neighbours. In 2015 my husband died.
“I’m having a bad life because my husband died, and there is no-one to help me take care of the children.”
When the last child fell ill, I had to leave the other children here so that I could take the sick one to the hospital.
I feel so much sorrow because I am on my own with the children. I had to work for my neighbours to get some money, just to get some food. I worked for others for two days each week, and then three days on my own land. We were eating badly – just beans and sweet potato. We did not have enough food – not even any oil or salt. The children were getting skin diseases from not enough food. I was often sick, and the children also. I am too tired from working.
The schooling of my children was also a problem. They were at school, but only one continues now, as I don’t have enough money for the school uniforms and materials.”
Burundi is a country mostly forgotten by the world, and the danger is people like Marie and her family are forgotten too. But not by you.
Through ALWS, and our Burundi partner – LWF (Lutheran World Federation) – Lutheran women in Australia help people like Marie build an abundant life …
“LWF began helping me by giving me a container so I can fetch water for the crops. They also gave me a hoe and bucket, and I am being trained in growing sorghum and beans. I am being taught new ways to grow things, so I can start a kitchen vegetable garden. A neighbour has lent me their goat, so I can use the manure for fertilising my vegetables.
I am thankful because LWF is also helping me with my house. I must make the bricks, and get the house built, and then they can help with the tin roof. One of my neighbours has helped me to make the bricks and to bake them in the kiln. This will make the house strong. They gave me the wood to burn the bricks. I have made 2,500 bricks. It has taken me two months to do this.
I am thankful to the Australians for assisting me, and I am happy because the house is important. I am excited to have a new home – a clean, safe environment and my heart will be full of joy!”
Marie and the children’s lives are still tough. The groundnuts Marie planted, didn’t grow. She is still worried about her children’s schooling, and how she can find a way to pay their fees.
Yet, you can see in the 2,500 bricks she made, the house she’s building, the crops she planted, the sacrifices she makes for her children … that she is prepared to do the humble, hands-on hard work it takes to build a better future for her children.
Through ALWS, Lutheran women are blessed to work alongside people like Marie.
Widows. Refugees. Farmers facing drought. Children from families too poor to go to school. People living with disability. The people the world too easily forgets.
As you follow in the footsteps of Jesus, helping others with your humble, hands-on hard work, you are a blessing, ALWayS. May the words that Jesus says to you fill you with joy: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.
Matthew 25:40 (MSG)
Interview: Julie Krause * Photos: ALWS / Helene Wikstrom
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