Meet Missy Williams – Seed Effect’s ED
We love our partnership with Seed Effect, love how God is using economic opportunity to help transform lives of our sisters in South Sudan! This week, we caught up for a chat with Seed Effect’s exec director, Missy Williams – and we so enjoyed what she had to say… When folks ask for a quick overview of what Seed Effect is and how it works, how do you answer? SE is a Christ-centered non-profit microfinance organization. We come alongside of struggling entrepreneurs and help them start businesses in South Sudan so that they’re able to provide for their families. What...
Read MoreThe Power of a Seed
Did you know you can buy duct tape now in just about any color you can imagine? It even comes covered with patterns or sports logos. Believe it or not, there is an emerging market (among 9-12 year old girls at least) for creations fashioned out of duct tape. With this in mind, my 10 year old daughter started a duct tape flower business this year. She shopped for the tape and selected primary colors and accents. She learned different designs and techniques for creating the flowers. She came up with a budget and rudimentary business plan, calculating how much she needed to charge to cover her...
Read MoreWhat’s Up with Female Economic Opportunity?
Many things in South Sudan are complicated. Really complicated. But this matter of helping offer our sisters economic opportunity is, for a change, blessedly simple. Here’s why: When women like those we’ve been meeting these past few weeks – Amuna, Margaret, Beatrice – are given a chance to care for themselves and their families, they do it. You’ve seen it yourself this past month. They work tirelessly and creatively to begin and operate new businesses. They repay their loans, use proceeds to care for their families, reinvest in new loans to expand businesses and share...
Read MoreBeatrice Gune – The Road from Difficult
Beatrice Gune’s wide smile lights her whole face – and she smiles often. The South Sudanese mother of three exudes a tranquility and contentment that belies years of suffering, and when she shares her story, Beatrice loves to point out that she’s more than survived. With God’s help and loving opportunities, she’s been able to prevail. Gune was orphaned as a child and reared by an already-overwhelmed relative. Her days in war-torn South Sudan were long, often filled with hard labor and physical mistreatment. Since there was no time for education, she stopped attending...
Read MoreMeet Margaret Dradru
Margaret proudly offers a tour of her storage shed full of bananas, eggs, and fruit – and she points out the little goat bought with profits from her business. But she’s quick to mention that it’s God who has made her able to care for her family and provide what she and her eight children need. After all, the smiling 53 year-old reminds us, life in South Sudan has many challenges, and her story is complicated. Inside her little home, Margaret explains that AIDS claimed her first husband in 1997 – and she has been living HIV-positive for the past 23 years. This is bold admission in a...
Read MoreMeet Amuna Margret
Life is full and challenging for Amuna Margret. The thirty-five year-old mother of seven lives in rural Nimule where she cares for her children and two extended family members. She was formerly married, but her husband took a second wife and became abusive to Amuna shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in South Sudan. With a large family to care for, Amuna began collecting stones to sell in the local market. Once she’d amassed $150, she moved on to selling greens, an endeavor that yielded meager, but slightly better, results. Determined, Amuna persisted, and when a...
Read MoreAn Unstoppable Faith in a Faithful God
One of the things I’ve loved most about being involved with Sister Effect has been how everything, from our business plan to the actual hands-on work we do in South Sudan, is centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the root and foundation for all we do. It is not enough to meet physical needs and bring clean water, care for orphans and other physical needs without offering the True, Living Water, Jesus. He is who heals, meets our needs both physical and spiritual, and the only way one can be made fully whole and restored to God. These last few months of being involved in Sister...
Read MoreWhen I Think of Rebecca
I met Rebecca under a Kigelia tree that, in the rural village of Maloney, South Sudan, also serves as a makeshift health clinic one day each week. Her beautiful bright smile and sparkly “tween” giggle caught my attention as she waited in line for the doctors to see her little sister. She had a tattered blue backpack slung over her shoulder and a small paper textbook in her hand. She would often look over at me and smile, though her friends were shy and kept their heads down when glancing in my direction. When Rebecca and her “gang” finally made it to the table...
Read MoreRefusing to Do Nothing…
When I read about what life is like for women in South Sudan, I can barely make sense of it. Some of the statistics that I read seem too horrific, too awful to be real. I’m afraid that if I really allow myself to comprehend the truth behind the numbers, it will overwhelm me. I will feel paralyzed by the enormity of it all. Do one in four newborns really die before reaching the age of five? How can it be that a place exists where something so devastating has become so commonplace? I’m tempted to think (if I am honest with myself) that it must feel different there, that tragedy must be...
Read MoreHoly Inconvenient: Reflecting on Christmas
I mostly love Christmas. I love its meaning. I revel in the lights and music, the cooler air (only it doesn’t get cold in this part of Texas so we fake Arctic air by cranking down the AC and lighting our fireplaces). But until this season, the lunacy of holiday hustling and crowds everywhere made me plain crazy. I mean who likes being gridlocked in traffic every day for nearly a month listening to “Let it Snow” despite 80-plus degree temps? That can bring out the Grinch in even someone like Mother Teresa. But as I sat stuck last week in an endless sea of cars near a...
Read MoreBoy explains the culture for women and girls in S. Sudan
A teacher named Marcellina speaks to Primary 7 boys about the division of work between girls and boys in the family. Marcellina teaches one of the boys' older sisters in the local high school. She looks forward to being their teacher in secondary school in a couple of years, so she can teach them more about gender equality.
Read More
Join us in helping build and supply clinics that will bring better health to the women and girls of South Sudan.
Follow us!
