This morning I thought I would try answering a question which I have been asked many times by people in different places. “Cecilia, how do you get these women who end up at Creative Hands, do you have to go to the camps and share about your work?” This question has been asked many times and my answer has always been, no, I do not go to camps to recruit, neither do we advertise or anything, but the women come to us or sometimes they are referred to us by other organizations working with refugee and displaced people groups.
I am excited to share about something which happened the previous weekend started last week and culminated this weekend. But, this story actually goes back about 2 months. I pray as you read it you will thank God with me and pray with me. You my friend can thank God after reading this story because it involves you, your prayers and your financial gifts.
About two months ago I received a message from a Greek number which I did not recognize and upon following up I found out it was a woman from Cameroon who had gotten my number through our Social Media because she needed help. This woman El does not live in Greece anymore but in France. She is at home with no work or prospect of work so she had contacted me to see if we had a Creative Hands presence in France. Unfortunately we do not have anything related to Creative Hands in France. After that conversation, El shared my phone number with her friend who lives in a camp about 3 hours away from here. Her friend is from South Sudan and came here with the hope of a better future for herself and her family. The Sudanese friend took my number and kept it but she did not do anything about it, even though her friend in France had informed that I (Cecilia) help women.
Last week the woman from Sudan, out of desperation for help, cried out to God because she did not want to go back to her past but wanted to live for Jesus with her whole being. From that time of crying out to God, she was reminded of my number and she immediately sent me a message and I responded and we had another conversation last week at the end of which I invited her to come and spend a few days with us watching, talking, asking the other women and praying for God to show her the way.
So she came on Saturday and yesterday we went to church together. I do believe that God’s hand is upon this woman who has gone through a lot, who knows the power of prayer because she has seen God at work in her life. I believe that our paths were destined to cross.
OUR REQUEST
At Creative Hands we have tried very hard to always welcome the women who come to us. Most of them have stayed to work for a month-years and we have enjoyed having them. We would like to give our Sudanese sister an opportunity to learn with us and then be employed in the future. We are at the end of the year and we would like to help her, but financial constraints would cause us to say NO, although we know better not to say ‘NO’ when in our hearts we know we are to help. Our sister from Sudan will stay with us for this week and then will go back to the camp and decide whether to come back or not. I know though that she would like to stay because she wants to learn and she needs a job. We have her staying in one of the apartments we have access to and she will be hosted by Creative Hands. If she decides to come back for training and then work with us we would like to ask for financial help which will strengthen our YES to her. For the three months of training we will need to provide housing, food and everything she needs for 3 months and for that we are asking for donations of up to $1,500. After the training period we will employ her on a part time basis initially for a salary of $700 per month. We do this probation period of 3 months for all our women as that is a way of getting them into a working environment with ease. So these 6 months we would need a total of $4200 and after that we will be in a place to have her work more hours and pay her more.
We thought we would ask especially during this Christmas Season. Would you consider helping us reach our goal for this woman of raising $5700 and get her started in January 2025. We will share more about her testimony once we have offered her training opportunities.
You can donate here or you can visit us at: www.creativehands.gr
Thank you
Cecilia
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