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Share the Load

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2.

Turkana women have a load to bear, both literally and figuratively. I didn’t know it was possible for someone to carry such huge bundles of sticks or such heavy barrels of water on her head, until I saw it everywhere I walked. But the women’s even heavier load is that not only are they expected to take care of all the home’s domestic chores, but they are also responsible for being the financial providers for their household. Mothers spend hours over boiling-hot jikos (small charcoal burners), lug heavy jericans of water from wherever the nearest well or river is, walk the groceries and charcoal the miles home from town, and make sure the children are fed, clean, and off to school (if possible). Due to influence of cultural gender standards and often single-parenthood, they also must be the ones who somehow find the money to buy their meager supplies of dried beans, rice, and cornmeal and to pay school fees. In fact, many mamas truly live day-to-day with the questions of whether or not they even get to cook any food, and whether eating or education is more important for their children.

No matter how many times you hear stories of how impoverished people struggle with the basic necessities of life, living with a community for whom this is their story makes it all too real. That is why I couldn’t just stay away from Africa after visiting for six months when I was 19. God has given me a family in the desert of Northern Kenya, and I’m never forgetting them. In the three and a half years between my visits, my passion to stay connected to my home around the globe grew and gained vision—and now that I’ve lived there again for another six months, I know I have to do something. 

Life is hard in Lodwar. The ladies at my church will work themselves to the core, when they have the opportunity. Even though just getting through the day in a desert environment where the temperature reaches 110˚ and you can feel the sun burning your skin and parching your mouth can be exhausting, my friends would put in long hours doing man’s labor of making cement-block houses or selling bundles of “fresh” fish or tilling the arid ground for desperate little shambas (gardens). Throw in up to eight children and those grass mats will feel like heaven by the time the dark of night rolls around. The problem is, usually either the jobs the women find don’t pay enough or there isn’t even any work for pay available. And they’re stuck: hungry, exhausted, uneducated. This isn’t a sob story; it’s true.

They tangibly showed me Christ as they took the bracelets off of their own wrists to give to me, as they enthusiastically praised God at the top of their voices while jumping with all of their strength, as they walked miles in the heat of the day just to see me off at the tiny local airport. The thing that especially hit my heart was when Helen pulled me aside and told me the ladies’ agreement. “There’s Christine,” she said, pointing to the smiling woman led by her little girl. “She’s blind and can’t sew, so we’re each going to give her some of our earnings.” This money is pure gold to these ladies who wear the same clothes every time I see them and who raised their arms in praise to God when they received a gift of two kilos of flour—but  here they are, giving it to those who need it even more. How can I respond to such love and generosity?

This is why I’m starting this project called Sharing the Load. I want to give these ladies a legitimate and sustainable way to provide for themselves and their families. We can help carry their burdens by carrying our own small burdens in bags sewn by the Turkanas’ work-worn hands; we can lessen life’s strain and help provide both financial and emotional encouragement by giving these women a channel in which to pursue some of their dreams for a better life.

I’m praying that I’ll be able to give the report that they better keep making the bags so I can keep buying them to sell. Their faces were so excited and hopeful as they handed me this first batch, and so now I’m just going to see what God does with this idea. Any money donated above my purchasing cost will go directly to supporting the continuation of our project. I hope their load will get lighter.