Imagine coming to Greece with the hope of building a better life and future for the children you will have in this foreign country. You meet a man who has come with the same dream and hope and he promises you marriage and you believe him because “you grew up in a country and culture where to have value you have to be married and have children.” So you agree to living with this man who, after getting you pregnant, vanishes from your life and leaves you pregnant, with no job and alone.
Instead of having an abortion you decide to keep the pregnancy and at the end of nine months you are blessed with a beautiful baby girl. You raise this daughter and at some point, when this baby girl is 3 years you decided to travel to another European country because you have heard that life is better there and things will be improve. So, you as a single mother take a risk and travel to the other country and sure enough life is a bit better, you can work, even without right documents. You enroll your daughter in kindergarten school and you start working because you want to give your daughter a better life. However, at this job you don’t get any health benefits or a work contract even though they pay you.
Two years pass and now your residence permit which you could use there is near expiring and the host country is not willing to renew your residence permit so they literally force you to leave and go back where you first got your residence permit.
You get there and there is no one to help you, you are introduced to a lawyer who lies to you and asks for money which you don’t have. But what do you do, you give him the initial payment of 500 Euros so he can start the process of renewing your papers...
Such was the story of Tigist when I met her by chance at another refugee’s house that we had helped in the past. I immediately knew that I had to step in and help and by God’s grace we found an organization that helps with such matters in Athens and they helped her for free and now she has legal papers and we employ her at Creative Hands even though we did not have her in our budget. Her daughter is in school and we need your financial help to assist us towards the salary for Tigist, a beautiful woman from Ethiopia.
Tigist has become part of our community and she knows the love of God because through your giving we have demonstrated it to her. Would you consider giving a one-off gift on this GIVING TUESDAY.
Thank you
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