Missy Williams – Seed Effect 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 makes us unique is our desire to go into tumultuous areas and work alongside struggling families to share opportunities to invest in their own goals and dreams. To ensure the programs succeed, we have a local team in the region committed to empowering their own people.

Tell us the story of how you were led to begin Seed Effect?
I love interior design and had started my own business. At the same, though, my husband and I took a course on the world Christian movement. This made me rethink where I was heading with my life and we began asking God to change our hearts. Part of the beginning of His answer was a short-term mission trip to South Sudan in 2007. The war had formally ended just two years before, and independence (which happened 9 July 2011) wasn’t yet a reality. What we saw was a land and people starting from scratch, tasked with rebuilding a country that had been devastated by nearly a half century of war and conflict. We watched as people were returning to this land to start over – some with just a tarp and sack of grain. And we thought, how can we do anything about this, but how could we not? A little later, a local Sudanese woman shared her dream of owning a sewing machine. It was in that moment, that God gave me a vision for Seed Effect and I knew I would be back here. It’s been a long journey, but we launched the program. Today, there are five of us here in the States and a team of fifteen Sudanese in South Sudan who oversee the program.

What do you enjoy most about leading Seed Effect?
Our Seed Effect team is a family. Really. The team both here and in South Sudan is small and we’re able to truly know each other as we serve together. I love learning the stories of our clients, love seeing them empowered and watching how God transforms their lives – and ours in the process. I also love the chance to place people where God uses their gifts and abilities to help others as He glorifies Himself.

Biggest challenges?
This is a time of seismic change in South Sudan. There’s so much work to be done, and like the Sister Effect team, we so believe that God intends for the South Sudanese to be empowered to do it, to rebuild their nation. That said, our greatest challenge is finding qualified local workers to help expand our programs that serve the South Sudanese. Years of war, displacement and now resettlement, have left little infrastructure and opportunity in most parts of South Sudan. So many are without job skills training and formal education. This is all changing – and quickly – but there’s still this gap we’re facing right now in finding qualified local believers who will in turn expand these efforts to equip and serve local communities.

How do you see the partnership between Sister Effect and Seed Effect benefitting our sisters in South Sudan?
I see an incredible synergy, endless opportunities! Sister Effect’s model of coming alongside existing work in South Sudan allows chances to not only serve together and build new relationships here and in South Sudan; it also works to enhance existing efforts and expand into new frontiers. When like-minded groups or organizations together focus on and channel their attempts, God’s work through us is maximized – and in South Sudan, this means more lives are positively impacted. We’re super-excited about our relationship with Sister Effect and look forward to how God will use it to transform all of us involved in this work.

As a woman and a young mom, how does it feel to be coming alongside of these precious sisters in South Sudan?
Wow… my goodness! I’m not sure there are words to adequately respond to this. To be serving in a culture where women aren’t valued as we are here, where they’re often treated as property and not people… it’s been so very life-changing. It’s an indescribable blessing to be a small part of empowering these women and witnessing them grow and become more of who God intended them to be. It’s also incredible to experience over and again this truth that we’re so much more alike than we are different – that God has made and treasures all people equally, and to be created human means that we’re more alike than different than other human beings, no matter what our culture or contexts.

We’re definitely praying for the work of Seed Effect in Nimule and Kajo Keji. Can you share some specific ways we can do so?
Absolutely – here goes! Please pray for our clients and for new Sudanese nationals who will serve as local Seed Effect leaders. Pray for God to guide all of us in knowing how to implement what’s best in this land, what will be the most redemptive and transformational in the long term. Also, please pray that we’ll have the capacity to implement goals and encourage deep and lasting community growth.

Contributor: Betsy

As a mental health professional, I can tell you that psychologically, it is powerful to participate in changing your situation. To have ownership of your solution. That is one of the things I love about the Seed Effect Challenge. Microlending allows the women of South Sudan to participate in a solution! Entrepreneurship allows women to use the incredible gifts and abilities that God has given them to become active agents of change, helping to provide food, water, education and healthcare for their families. It is truly a privilege for us to be allowed to participate in the work that these amazing women are already doing to support their families and communities! Please consider providing the *seeds* for our sisters to become providers and agents of change in their communities in South Sudan.

~Betsy

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 successes with their communities.
They share their triumphs with other women living in poverty. They encourage these women and often partner with them! And the collaborative sisterhood of ingenuity and hard work continues.
They invest in resources like clean water, better health and education for their children. These choices are transforming communities.
Their hard-won success stories gain the attention of men in this very patriarchal society. These men are beginning to treat women with new levels of respect. Slowly, this addresses gender inequality and local perceptions of women and girls.

So the ‘why’ of helping offer economic opportunity is really simple. It works. It’s changing lives, helping initiate creativity, responsibility and it’s empowering women and girls to begin leading and living at their best.

In July of 2011, 90% of newly independent South Sudan lived on less than a dollar a day. So overcoming the crushing weight of poverty in this nation is anything but easy. But it can be done. When we partner with those seeking a hand up rather than a hand out, the tide begins to turn and lives change. Such change isn’t happening overnight, but it is happening.

Amuna, Margaret, Beatrice and the women you’ll continue to meet during the rest of our Seed Effect Challenge are living proof.

Will you join us in helping plant these seeds that overcome poverty and yield new life?

Beatrice Gune

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 a local, rare primary school. Then while just a teen, Beatrice married and began her own family. But after she’d given birth to her third child, her husband took a second wife and abandoned Gune. She was devastated although the taking of multiple wives can be commonplace in South Sudan.

As Beatrice’s family had begun expanding, the young woman baked and sold bread to make ends meet. When offered the chance for a small loan through Seed Effect, she borrowed money, continued her bakery endeavors, repaid her loan and then continued taking other small loans to strategically build her business. After her fourth loan cycle, Beatrice changed her business from the bakery to selling food supplies, which she is currently doing.

During all of this time, Beatrice was attending educational seminars and discipleship groups. Still, she explains, she never felt it necessary to follow Christ. But when conflict seemed to end her marriage following her third child’s birth, Gune turned to local Seed Effect workers and gave her life to Christ. She began attending church, connecting with other believers and praying for her broken marriage. In January 2013, Beatrice reconciled with her husband.

When asked about the joy and triumph in her life, Beatrice flashes another grin and her dark eyes twinkle. “I thank God for everything. And I thank Him for Seed Effect and how my friends there stood with me during my difficult moments. When my husband abandoned me, I had nothing to eat, nowhere to stay and no hope to live. That first micro loan and the love and spiritual support kept me alive.”

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 nation where suspicion, superstition and stigma still surround this illness. But, she continues, a bout with sickness and the ensuing HIV diagnosis in an Arua hospital (Arua is located in northern Uganda) is what led to a job offer to work at the facility where she began sharing God’s story of love and redemption with those around her.

Margaret loved her work but her earnings weren’t enough to care for her seven children. In 2009, she remarried and the couple had a child then moved to South Sudan’s Nimule. When she visited a rare hospital in Nimule to check her HIV status, Margaret was offered another job counseling and encouraging others with HIV. Thrilled that God had provided this ministry for her, she accepted but knew that the tiny wages would mean additional income was necessary to care for her family of ten.

After few months in Nimule, Margaret heard about the possibility of having a small business loan. Soon she took her first Seed Effect loan and began a small agricultural endeavor. Managing her business well, she repaid her loan and took a second one. Gesturing toward her storage shed, the mother of eight says she thanks God for the opportunities her business has afforded – school tuition for her children, better health care for her family and the recovery of her own health. She continues her ministry at the hospital and enjoys a discipleship group facilitated by local Seed Effect workers. Smiling, Margaret says she loves that her group begins with prayer and has teachings on health, personal hygiene, and business with topics such as customer care and selling a variety of products.

Please join us in praying for Margaret and her family. We’re asking God to continue empowering her to provide for her children and to use Margaret to reveal His love and provision to others. We’re also praying that He would continue using Seed Effect to help women like Margaret overcome poverty and become leaders in their local communities.

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 friend suggested she check out possibilities for a small business loan through Seed Effect, she agreed. Shortly after, she took her first loan and added to her business by purchasing more rice and sugar. With her second loan, she bought beans and cooking oil.

Amuna has managed her business well. She’s used her profits to enroll five of her children in primary school. She cares financially for her family of eight and for two others in her extended community. In January of this year, Amuna trusted Jesus Christ as Saviour and has joined a discipleship group hosted by local Seed Effect community workers in Nimule. When asked about the changes in her life, Amuna says she is grateful for the many improvements and thankful she can now care for her family. Further, she explains that as her husband has witnessed her strength, determination and success, their relationship has changed.

Amuna looks forward to expanding her business and adding a storeroom for goods and materials.

These last few months of being involved in Sister Effect has reminded me of Mark 2:1-12. This is an account of great surrender, faith and obedience. This is the testimony of four men bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed. There are some beautiful truths to be seen throughout this scripture.

After seeing their friend suffer for so long, being paralyzed, they heard about a man who claimed to be the Son of God. They heard testimony after testimony of His healing power – and His power to forgive sins. As they absorbed each story, their faith grew stronger, leading us to where we find them in Mark 2. These men knew there was a physical need that could only be fully met by Jesus. They believed that He walked in a power that could only come from God. And they knew they had to get their friend to Him. Mark tells us that the four of them got together, placed their friend on a bed and carried Him to Jesus. When they arrived, they found there was no way to get to Jesus- there were crowds around Him making Him beyond reach.

But that wasn’t enough to hold them back. Their faith was bigger than the obstruction. They had to see Jesus. Then they realized they could lower him through the roof! They were willing to do whatever it took, willing to push through any obstacle to bring this friend to Jesus. As they lowered him through the roof, Jesus looks at them and because of their faith, this man’s sins were forgiven. In this moment, Jesus met this man’s greatest need…he covered the debt he could never pay. Then He takes it even further and heals this man physically. In one sentence, Jesus breathes life and healing into this man’s paralyzed bones, bringing them to life again. Immediately this man jumps up, picks up the very bed he was carried on and walks out of the door.

Wow! We serve the great Healer and Physician of our souls and physical needs.

My hope is that through Sister Effect, we will be like these four men. Their faith in Jesus was so strong that they were willing to push through anything to get their friend to Him. They knew there really was nothing they could do but be a means to point their friend to Jesus, who had the ultimate healing touch. Their faith was so stirred in them that it led them to action. And in an effort to meet their friend’s physical need, an even greater need was met- his soul was cleansed and covered as Jesus forgave his sins. As our faith is stirred up in us, moving us to action, let us come alongside our precious South Sudanese sisters and look together to Jesus in hopes that physical needs would be met. But even more that, let us pray that their spiritual needs would be met. In turn, may these beautiful women become living, walking testaments to the healing power of Jesus, both physically and spiritually.

Rebecca and Sarah

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 designated for triage, she immediately came over and introduced herself in slow, halting English. She was excited to be at the clinic today, because it was an opportunity for her to practice this new language she had begun learning in school. Though she looked to be ten or twelve years old, Rebecca had only just begun attending school. Even so, as a girl in rural South Sudan, she is unique amongst her peers. Girls are valued for their ability to care for younger siblings, fetch water, and help care for the family – it is a rare father who allows his daughter to be absent from these duties to attend classes. Rebecca was so thrilled with her opportunity that she carried her school books with her everywhere and, when she found a chance to practice some English, she talked and laughed and asked unending questions until the last supplies were packed up for the day and the Land Rover carried the medical team away.

Sometimes when I think of all the challenges facing South Sudan I am overwhelmed by the task. How can we bring hope and expect to achieve any real change? But when I think of Rebecca, I realize that she is the future of South Sudan. When we come together to provide a source of clean water near her home so that she can attend school instead of walking miles each day carrying dirty water for her family, we are affecting the future of South Sudan. When we “do our thing” to provide medical supplies and antibiotics to keep her healthy, we are changing the future of the world’s newest nation. When we provide economic opportunities for her family, we ensure that she will be able to continue attending the classes that open the doors to her future.

This energetic girl with a shining smile is the future of her nation. Will you join me in standing with her to make that future brighter, healthier, and safer for all South Sudanese?

~Sarah

Contributor: Betsy

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 expected… anticipated… and that must make it more tolerable somehow. I tell myself the people must be different kinds of humans there — the kind who can bury children and still be okay. But, the truth that I know, when I look at their faces and think about their lives, is that they’re the same kind of human as me—the kind made in the image of God. The kind who love and are loved. The kind who experience both inexpressible joy and unimaginable grief. So fully human. And when one of their precious children dies, they feel it all the way down to their souls.

So, if there is something I can do, something that runs even a small chance of saving a life there – or simply helping make life better and safer – I think that I should.

I should let myself feel the overwhelming sorrow that this statistic warrants.
I should care.
I should refuse to do nothing.

So that’s my plan. Will you join me?

~Betsy

But as I sat stuck last week in an endless sea of cars near a shopping mall intersection and took in throngs of holiday shoppers treading in and out of stores, and as I watched colored lights twinkle shapes of stars and Santas and Christmas trees, a thought captivated me. And the idea had nothing and everything to do with the craziness all around me…

Sometimes the holiest things happen in the commonest places. And in the most inconvenient ways.

Jammed at that intersection and halfway annoyed by the madness around me, I could suddenly envision another kind of chaos, the one happening just hours leading up to Jesus’ arrival. Think about it. Didn’t Caesar Augustus’ census decree have the Roman world pretty much upended? Towns and roads, registry offices and inns – were they not full up and inconveniently running over with too much to do, too many people to register and feed and whatever else?

God sure has a curious sense of timing.

Because it was in the middle of this upside downness – with all of its noise and smells and crowds – that He did the holiest thing ever.
He showed up human. Tiny and vulnerable and to an exhausted young couple out back with the livestock because the hotel was full up – and Mary needed to have her baby somewhere.

You’d miss the holy part if you didn’t know how the story goes. We all would. Instead of marveling that God would deliver His matchless child into the center of frenzied world affairs through an ordinary girl who said yes when an angel-messenger showed up, we would probably just think about how inconvenient it was for a pregnant teenager to give birth in a cave or stable amid a mass of animals. We would undoubtedly dismiss a black sky aglow with angels showering good news onto shepherds. And we wouldn’t pay too much attention when the ragtag band clamored into Bethlehem to check out what God was up to.

We’re sort of bad at seeing holy things in ordinary places. Such insight isn’t consistent with our human nature.

“And it came about while they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth.”

There you have it. In the middle of a long journey, in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable place our God decides it’s time for Him to show up in person.

“The days were completed.”

Clearly, the Father doesn’t struggle with overcrowded, inconvenient or the like when He’s working out His plan. We’re the ones who forget to remember that common and holy don’t sit at two ends of a spectrum. In the most dazzling, obscure ways, God uses one to accomplish the other. Sort of like an Eternal King nestled deep down in the straw of a dirty feeding trough.

The light at my intersection finally turned green. As our car started inching forward, my youngest daughter slipped her hand into mine.

“Everything’s so beautiful tonight,” she smiled as lights dappled color over her little face.
“It is, Baby.”
“I love you, Mommy.”

There it was again. The holy in the common. So very sacred and right in front of me. And you.
See what I mean?