Women of Grace

Earlier this week, my husband and I, along with our Cameroonian “son” Pierre Nzuah, attended a potluck at the Canton First Presbyterian Church. Special guests for the evening were Sam Chirwa and Grace Chiumia, field directors from Malawi, Africa of the Women of Grace Widows’ Fund, a joint mission project of the Canton and Watertown Presbyterian Churches. The project is dedicated to alleviating the extreme poverty faced by widows in Malawi by providing funding to meet basic food, shelter and safety needs of widows and children. The project also creates opportunities and provides resources, like micro-loans, that enable widows to establish their own self-sufficiency  and independence regardless of religious affiliation.

The project is in its third year and grew out of a mission trip to Malawi in 2008 by eight North Country women, including Katrina Hebb, Vicki McLain, Ellen Grayson and Linda Potter, all from the Canton church.

Sam and Grace are doing really good work–woman by woman, child by child, house by house. I wanted to let you know about them and about the encouragement and support provided by North Country people–particularly Katrina, Vicki, Ellen and Linda, as well as their Watertown counterparts. This isn’t on the scale of the big international NGOs, it’s much more hands on and personal. It’s very North Country. All involved are proving that a little bit of caring can make a real difference in peoples’ lives.

Thanks for your good work.

Tags: malawi, presbyterian