The Widows

Abba Father’s House would like to introduce you to the widows we support.  The HIV/AIDS epidemic has left many women as widows and infected by the disease and yet the majority of the women in Uganda are housewives.  The effect of covid 19 has made lives of widows who survived the covid pandemic worse off as can be imagined.

For a woman who lost her husband, her whole world crashes down. She does not only grieve for the loss of her husband but she is also frightened of the huge burden she has to take on her own, the expenses involved especially as she has no income at all.  Without our help, widows face daily challenges of having no food, clothing, education and general care for themselves and their children and often widows die very young of trauma and treatable diseases due to poverty.

Before covid 19, we used to be able to hold fund raising functions in various locations to raise funds by selling cakes, samosas and widow’s crafts to meet emergency needs which are not budgeted for, but this opportunity is currently affected by the effects of covid as most people now work from home, and most offices allow limited numbers of staff which has left us without fundraising venues. 

Most people who try to help others tend to think or profess that “they know how they feel”, but this is not true because all of us are unique beings and we all react to issues differently. It is wrong for anyone to assume that they understand how others feel unless they have been in a similar situation or it is revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. Having gone through the same situation at some point in your life still does not guarantee you knowledge of how someone else might be feeling about their situation, all we do is try to imagine how other people might be feeling.  The good news is that no matter how big the problem, God is bigger than all situations that happen to us.  That’s why the bible tells us to pray in all situations and to believe that God is faithful to give us breakthroughs.

From Philippians 4:6-7.

6 Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Abba Father’s Houses purposes to journey with the widows on a step-by-step basis until they come to a place where they too can identify their needs be able to make right choices and apply them into their individual circumstances.

AFH staff express sympathy, kindness, comfort and listens to widow’s needs in order to identify their underlying issues. This gives widows hope and assurance that we are for them and not against them. It also releases them from fear and gives widows liberty to tell us more about themselves and to work with us.

We help widows to understand their needs and we encourage them to adapt and apply the skills and knowledge that we give them into their individual circumstances, and that frees from fear and motivates them to have hope for a better future.

Before Covid 19 pandemic, widows were producing such things as necklaces made from local material, table clothes, paper bags, and other handcrafts, shirts and dresses for sale, however, most of the widows were dispersed because of covid 19 and each went their own way in order to escape death and circumstances become worse off due the intensity of the virus.  We’re now trying to re-group the widows who survived covid but to do so, we need resources to purchase material for project work.  

Currently, we have a small number of widows mostly new members and they are being encouraged to commit to fellowship.  AFH staff continue to visit widows in their times of dire need such sickness, both to comfort and to pray for them and also provide basic necessities from time to time any support we get is very vital.  Please help us to reach out to these vulnerable ladies with a touch of charitable love.