My name is Samina and I am a single mother of seven children. My husband left me when all the children were young. It was a hard blow and almost broke my heart. I was a housewife and he was the breadwinner, so when he left we were left without a livelihood. It was absolutely horrible and a huge shock for me.
The two youngest children were only babies of 1 and 2 years old and we had to live!
I tried to work as much as I could to earn money by buying and selling things, and then let the older children look after the younger children when they were not in school. But it was hard and I felt like I was letting my children down and not giving them what they needed or wanted. So I struggled a lot with my conscience and with my emotions, and I cried a lot. But despite the difficulties, I managed to dress my children nicely and help as much as I could with their homework and education. I was always tired and I never had a whole day to relax. So I sighed and prayed to God to help me.
Read also: Through bags of hope, the church can reach more people
Then one day I suddenly came into contact with a Christian lady who attends a church in a neighboring town. We had fellowship once in a while and she told me how God had helped her in a very difficult situation. She told me about Jesus and she prayed for me and my family. I sensed that she knew God. So I asked her more about God and her faith, and she answered my questions and asked me if I wanted to come to her church with her. I was happy to do so.
The Church and Bags of Hope!
The meeting at the church made a big impression on me, and after the meeting the leader of the church said that he had heard that I was struggling and that the church would like to help me with some big bags of food and other necessities for a while. It sounded almost too good to be true, and I didn't really believe that they would help me. Why would they?
But they did, and I was incredibly happy and grateful to them. They said that it was God who had seen me and God whom I should thank.
I kept coming to church and one day a joyful event suddenly happened in my life and the children's lives. We accepted Jesus into our hearts and it filled us with joy.
Since then, I have experienced God's presence when I pray, and God has also answered many of the prayers I have prayed. Something that only He could do. One of my prayers was to get a good and nice home to live in, because we, I with 7 children, lived in a very small apartment, which had been a dorm room of only 20 km2.
God answered my prayer and now we live in a house with four rooms and a garden, and for the same price.
In the Bags of Hope project, supported by Danish European Mission donors, Christians in a Central Asian country distribute food to orphans and the very poorest families who are typically in a difficult economic situation due to the death of the father, divorce or alcohol abuse at home. Through the project, Christians come into contact with many people they might never have met otherwise and have the opportunity to not only share God's love, but to show it.
