Tabitha Minayo, Floise Ayuma, Gladys Auma and Priscah Wairimu
All five Kenyan women held three things in common: All were young believers in Jesus; all discovered that they were HIV-positive; all had been infected by their own husbands.
– Priscah, who operated a nursery school, became too weak physically to care for children, including her own. She had to close her nursery school. A friend, and then eventually her mother, took in her children.
– Gladys’ husband disappeared. Left without any income to pay her five children’s school fees, she had no alternative but to keep them home. Although the Kenyan government provided HIV medication, Gladys couldn’t take the medication without food, which she couldn’t afford to buy.
– Tabitha’s husband soon succumbed to AIDS. She also became too ill to work. Her children had to drop out of school, and they survived by begging on the streets, bringing home what they could for their mother.
– Cynthia’s husband abandoned her once his unfaithfulness was exposed by her positive HIV test. Unsupported and ill, she was afraid she and her children would starve before AIDS took her life.
– Floise also became too ill to work, and her three children were going without food. She wondered if they also were HIV-positive.
The future looked very bleak for all five.
John Omondi, a Heaven’s Family-sponsored National Missionary and house-church planter, and the members of his churches, sacrificially gave out of their own poverty in order to help all five desperate women. But it was not enough. So John sent Heaven’s Family a request: Would we provide for the food needs of all five families for six months, enabling the mothers to take their medication, hopefully regain their health, and keep their children alive? Thanks to gifts to the Food Fund, we were able to grant John’s request.
Sadly, Cynthia died of AIDS on July 4th, leaving behind two children (the youngest of whom is HIV-positive) who are now being cared for by their grandmother. The other four women have done well, gaining some strength and health. When my husband (David) visited Kenya in late July, he met with all of them. They were so thankful for the assistance they had been receiving. We hope to soon provide all four, plus Cynthia’s mother-in-law, with small-business start-up micro-loans so they can sustain themselves and their children. Thanks for caring.
