My heart is rejoicing over the signs of God’s love appearing in the remote villages of rural Zambia. Generous support from our friends has enabled our ministry partner, the Daughters of the Redeemer, to equip impoverished families in rural villages with opportunities they never thought possible.
It has been amazing to see all the blessings that have unfolded during the past year. Our donor friends brought clean water to four villages for the first time, freeing families from recurring illnesses. U.S. Catholics also provided funding for staff salaries and staff housing at two rural hospitals, allowing qualified medical professionals to serve remote communities and prevent patients from having to walk hours to reach faraway medical facilities when they are sick or pregnant. Our donors also supported scholarships, home gardens, new microbusinesses, deliveries of nutritional food and spiritual formation.
I see the Lord’s hand working in all these blessings! He inspired faithful Catholic sisters to step out in faith and bless their neighbors in need, and he called U.S. Catholics to support these missions of mercy!
Related: Bringing Clean Water to the Poor.
Martha, a young woman in Zambia, now has safe drinking water for the very first time. She knows only the Church could have brought this life-changing blessing to her remote village of Chibembwa.
“I’m grateful to God for those people who are supporting us back in the U.S.,” said Martha, who no longer has to go to a shallow pit, drop in a bucket, and draw up water that is often muddy and filled with contaminants that make her family sick.
With support from U.S. Catholics, the Daughters of the Redeemer installed a new well that reaches clean water deep underground. A solar-powered pump sends the water to an elevated storage tank, and families can get all the water they need simply by turning on a tap in the village. Now, Martha and her family are healthier and can better care for their crops in a small field. Martha’s family was also one of 25 to receive a ventilated pit latrine, which has improved her family’s sanitation.
“Life has changed now that the water has come nearby,” said Martha’s sister, Beatrice. “For a long time, we used to struggle with different diseases — skin diseases, diarrhea. Once, I had to go to the hospital for that. Now, we no longer have to suffer.”
Gifts from our friends do much more than provide temporary relief — they empower families to create a new future. I love seeing the hope rising in 50 families who participated in the launch of a microenterprise project.
With training from the sisters’ ministry team, families formed savings and loan associations in their villages and were provided with low-interest loans to create retail, service and farming businesses. Lives are already being transformed!
At the first meeting of her savings and loan association, Macerlina was handed $85 in profits she had earned. She cried out, “In my entire life, I haven’t held so much money!” The grandmother has big plans for these funds, which she earned by buying and reselling bananas. She is helping her daughter with college tuition and saving to install a cement floor in her dirt-floored home. She also hopes to build a chicken coop to begin raising chickens.
Our friends’ support has empowered Ronald to envision something new for his family. “I am confident we are not going to be hungry this year,” he said.
Before the sisters’ programs reached them, Ronald and his wife, Elina, often could provide their three children with only one meal a day. It broke the parents’ hearts, but there was little they could do. As subsistence farmers, they often lacked the resources to buy seeds and other inputs to grow adequate food. Sometimes, there just wasn’t enough rain to help their crops grow.
Now these parents are smiling! Their children are eating meals like never before! Gifts from our friends enabled the sisters to provide them with nutritious Vitafood meals, and recently, additional support through the agriculture and microenterprise projects. Now, the family’s garden is flourishing, so they are incorporating their homegrown produce into their meals and selling their crops to earn money. With these earnings, they have been able to buy a greater variety of food for their meals, school uniforms for the children, beds with mattresses and blankets, and chickens to raise. They were also able to install solar electricity at home.
“I am very grateful for the help that has been given to us,” Elina said. “Most people here are living in poverty. We are able to live better now.”
She added that she is eager to see even more of her neighbors participate in the agriculture and microenterprise projects in order to build stronger sources of income. I share her wish and look forward to helping more families!
Related: Harvesting for the Future
I love the confidence of Sister Prisca Matenga, mother superior general of the Daughters of the Redeemer. She fully believes in the potential of the families of Zambia’s rural villages — all they need is opportunity.
“Poverty will be eliminated if people are empowered,” she said.
In addition to empowering families with material blessings, the sisters bring spiritual blessings that restore precious hope. Sr. Prisca said poverty deeply affects a person’s outlook on life. When a person lives in abject poverty and sees no way out, they can become trapped by despair. But when that person can start a business, grow bountiful crops or receive an education, they discover their God-given potential and see his hand working mightily on their behalf.
“People recognize there is a God who loves them,” Sr. Prisca said.
I am profoundly grateful for all the blessings the sisters are bringing to families in Zambia and for the generosity of our friends who support them. I look forward to many more years of empowering families, bringing them hope and assuring them there is a God who loves them!
Related: Spiritual Renewal in Remote Areas
Donations from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures for this project incurred through June 30, 2027, the close of our ministry’s fiscal year. In the event that more funds are raised than needed to fully fund the project, the excess funds, if any, will be used to meet the most urgent needs of the ministry.
