POWER POINTS: GOD AT WORK THROUGH WOMEN LEADERS YESTERDAY AND TODAY BY LEECY BARNETT
Jackie Odhiambo WE HAVE BECOME FATHERLESS, OUR MOTHERS ARE WIDOWS. (Lamentations 5:3 NIV)
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his lament became Jackie Odhiambo’s reality at age 11 when her father died. Growing up with a widowed mother, widowed grandmother, and widowed aunt shaped the whole trajectory of Jackie’s life. Life in a rural village outside Kisumu, Kenya, is a struggle for many, but when a woman is raising her children on her own, her troubles are multiplied 100-fold. For example, the family’s funds were so tight that Jackie had to delay entering high school because her mother labored to come up with the 50 dollars for the required fees. Food insecurity was a daily experience: the Odhiambos usually had one meal a day, and Jackie sometimes got 10 cents to buy a snack at lunchtime. On top of this, Jackie could see how her mother’s grief weighed on her, but she refused to burden her children with her sadness. Faith was the one constant that Jackie’s mom and grandmother counted on. Jackie attended church regularly and, as a teenager, began to understand who Jesus was and what He had done for her. God was looking out for Jackie when He connected
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