Nataana longs to see her community changed. She prays for rain to revive the hardened, dry ground; for food to be multiplied and distributed to all the hungry bellies in her neighborhood; for goats to roam the land of every family’s property, to be milked and provide nourishment or income; for wide-open stretches of pasture, abounding in luscious, green grass; for all the children to spend their days in classrooms, being taught with a quality education; for these children to achieve their biggest, wildest dreams.
Her community in Mosiro, Kenya, aches with the burden of all these circumstances. And for Nataana personally, these challenges stare her right in her face. She’s a 36-year-old widow. Her husband died nine years ago from prostate cancer, and now she’s raising five kids on her own. Three of them are in school, and two are still too young and stay at home. Her heart sinks in pain as she mourns the loss of her husband, but also the loss of a dad for her children. She wants to take care of her kids—to clothe them, feed them, and educate them—but it’s challenging to do so with only one income. Plus, her household has been functioning off one income for quite some time, so they don’t have extra resources they can pull from. While her husband was still alive, he wasn’t able to work due to his medical condition with the cancer and his old age of 82 years. Nataana was the sole breadwinner, even back then. With her husband’s death, things didn’t get any easier. The drought raged on throughout the land, and she lost her six cows. She tried to sell all she had to meet the needs of her hungry family, and she was desperate for relief.
Then in early March of 2023, Nasha Ministries was able to partner with The Hope Venture to provide a goat for Nataana and her family! Goats are resilient animals, so even in drought they can do well, producing milk for Nataana’s family to drink for healthy nourishment, or to sell for some extra income. Livestock is highly treasured in her community, and receiving a goat in the midst of a long drought restored her hope. Through this, Nataana saw that God is the giver of food and life, and He provided another chance to replenish her lost dignity, and she received Christ as her personal savior. Receiving a goat was a glimpse into an answered prayer—to see the beginnings of restoration in her own family with the hope that it would ripple out into the community at large. She can hold onto this past provision of a goat to continue on in hope and prayer for greater change in her community in the future… for rain, for full bellies, for kids in school.
