God is using Dorcas Ministries to empower Kenyan women. Through training classes, the ministry equips them to be effective church leaders and teaches them entrepreneurial skills to help them provide for their families.
Wanjiku's Story
Wanjiku, a women's fellowship leader in her church, first learned about Dorcas Ministries in 2004. An SIM missionary encouraged her to sharpen her leadership skills by attending a counselling course. Although Wanjiku was busy with her business of raising chickens, she attended the ten training sessions.
When a strange disease killed 485 of her chickens, leaving only 15, she was devastated. Her family was depending on her income because her husband had been made redundant from his job. But Wanjiku did not give up. 'When God closes one door, he always opens another,' she says.
Wanjiku called her friend Wambui and asked her to pray for God's provision. Wambui had attended the Dorcas Ministries skills training, and she offered to teach her to make artificial and natural fruit juice. That Sunday, Wanjiku brought some juice for the leaders in the women's fellowship to thank God for her new skill. Each of the ladies placed an order for juice and told her friends. By the end of the week, she was already doing business!
'When God closes one door, he always opens another.'
In February 2006, Wanjiku enrolled in the skills training class. She took a keen interest in tie and dye and did well in it. In May—before she had finished the training—a Kenyan living in the USA visited and ordered 16 different outfits for her wedding. She took the order and made a profit of £120! By July, she had earned enough money to open a shop and to buy 200 chickens to restart her farm.
Wanjiku's business grew beyond her expectation. Her daughter who just finished high school decided to help her mother. She is thankful for the business because it provided her school fees for the final year of high school.
