Thank YOU for Changing Lives for the Better

Exactly one year ago, as part of a team of World Vision bloggers, I headed to Armenia to experience cold weather poverty first-hand and see the work World Vision does to strengthen families and communities.

It was life changing for me, and a privilege to share the wonderful people I met with YOU!  

One year later, I thought I’d update you on how one family we met is doing. Why did I choose Aida and Vova’s family? Well, thanks to generous An Inch of Gray readers, ALL of their children were sponsored, setting them up for a better chance of long-term success and giving them another caring partner in their lives across the many miles. Thank you so much!

During a recent visit with a World Vision worker, Aida said: “I am so proud to have World Vision by my side. The support received from sponsors are always a good helping hand during hard times. I feel as if the sponsors were my children's godfathers, they are always on my mind,” she said with gratitude, holding her eighth new-born child, while the seven others ran around their tiny 2 room house.

World Vision sponsorship has helped Aida’s children with clothing, bedding, hygiene supplies and school supplies. It has shown the family that there are people across many miles who are pulling for their family, as well as local Armenian World Vision workers who are by their sides, doing life with them. World Vision gave the family 2 new sheep which help with wool and milk, and has provided Aida with parenting skills training in the community, knowing that supporting a mama is a good way to help her children.

As World Vision’s program becomes more established in the remote Amasia region (this was a fledging project when we visited), it is my hope that this family will become more stable financially, particularly because an individual development plan is in the works for them. I love how World Vision does not use a cookie-cutter approach to “fix” families, but looks at individuals. These kids have names, distinct personalities, differing needs, and dreams. 

But it’s not all good news.

Aida’s husband Vova (Vladimir) lost his job this winter. This is not a promising time to find a new job in an agrarian region, with snowbanks piled to the rooftops. It’s easy to imagine things growing increasingly stressful for this family of 10 as debts mount until Vova can get a new job.

It is not lost on me as I prepare for my own little surprise baby, scanning the internet reading up on the merits of $30 swaddling blankets and $70 bouncy seats, how different my little boy’s life will be than Aida’s children’s will. I fret about where we will put all of the “stuff” that accompanies such a tiny one, and wonder which car seat and baby monitor is the best. 

I think of my big, warm, remodeled house and remember having to stand away from the walls in Aida and Vova’s ramshackle rented one because the cold was coming through and the floor boards were warped and unstable for standing. My baby will have cribs and cradles, plenty of food and opportunities. 

The needs of the world’s children seem huge and overwhelming and tempt me to turn my eyes and ears away from the reality outside of our home, focusing on just my family. But if I don’t look outside, I would miss the beautiful brown eyes of Grigor, one of the sons who grabbed our hearts one year ago today. Or Mary, a tough cookie who could hold her own with her brothers.

Looking outside connects us to others, and reminds us that spring is around the corner. Winter is harsh, but there is always spring. And with spring comes hope— hope for my new baby, hope for the beautiful nation of Armenia, hope for a big family in a little ramshackle house who is not giving up. 

Will you hope and pray with me, for my little guy coming in a few weeks, and for the children whose names we know and those we don’t yet know, across our nation and the world?

And if you feel led, will you consider choosing one more child to love through World Vision Sponsorship?

Empowering the Rural Women of Armenia

I am on the World Vision blog today sharing more about the women I met in Armenia. Please visit the blog or read all about it here. Thanks!

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Margarita walking back from school with her son Tigran in Amasia, Armenia. (Photo: 2015 Matthew Paul Turner)

According to the UN, empowering women living in rural areas is essential in the fight against extreme poverty.

As a girl growing up in the suburbs, my encounters with rural life took place on my aunt and uncle’s farm in West Virginia. I was struck by the abundance around me. Acre upon acre of land, ringed by tree-covered mountains, rows of corn that seemed to stretch for miles, and a big kitchen table piled high with food and encircled by family.

When I grew up, I loved taking my kids back there. Once, my son Jack asked where “Aunt Betty’s peacock” was, because he had seen one at a farm park I’d taken him to and assumed that all farms had a peacock strutting about. There was no peacock on this working farm, but there was no shortage of livestock, either. Getting far away from the city and the suburbs meant fresher air, beautiful scenery, and bearing witness to long hours of intense yet rewarding work for the family on the farm.

Did you know that the UN celebrates the International Day of Rural Women today? 

I didn’t either.

My view of who a rural woman is has shifted over the past eight months since my trip to Armenia with World Vision.

My memories from my aunt and uncle’s farm were in stark contrast to my experience in Armenia. The Armenian villages we visited were so remote, that “isolated”—rather than rural—is how I would describe them. And the landscape, striking in beauty with majestic mountains all around, had ground that stayed frozen 7-8 months every year, making farming difficult. I saw so much struggle, from the daily quest for dried animal dung to be used for heating—since firewood was so scarce—to women who seemed trapped without a support network in a cycle of bearing baby after baby yet without the means to care for them properly. My eyes saw lack rather than abundance.

The view of Amasia from Aida's house, including the outhouse on the right. (Photo: 2015 Matthew Paul Turner)

Children went to bed hungry, and some were sent to state-run institutions so that they could receive what their parents couldn’t provide. Medical bills or a bad batch of fruit could send a family teetering over the edge.

I remember meeting Aida, who lived with her husband and seven children in a small, remote village in the Amasia region. My teammates and I laughed as we pitched this way and that, trying to navigate our way through the deep snow. We passed a communal outhouse with a tin roof and made our way into a tiny rented home with sagging floors. I soon learned that only the eldest child had winter boots. It made our laughing trek up the hill, bundled in parkas and warm boots, seem a lot less funny, to think of this family isolated and housebound for months at a time.

It was easy to feel hopeless, especially when I contrasted my life as a woman and mother to some of the women like Aida I met in Armenia. I tried to imagine having to choose between keeping my family intact and sending my children away so they could eat. To not getting my kids vaccinated because I didn't have warm enough clothes to wrap them up and make the snowy trek to a doctor.

Aida and her husband with 2-year-old Grigor. (Photo: 2015 Laura Reinhardt/World Vision)

But not all was bleak.

As a result of our visit, each of Aida’s children gained World Vision sponsors, and Aida will benefit from development programs that World Vision will soon implement in her community. When we were able to meet families who had been part of World Vision’s established economic development programs, I could see how empowering rural women would raise the raise the standard of Aida’s family, other families, and entire communities. One mother I met had been given a knitting machine and was able to sell sweaters to earn money for her family. Other women were trained in growing, harvesting, and packaging local produce that could survive despite the unforgiving weather, and had gained experience marketing their products to high-end gift shops.

Haykanush working at her knitting machine. (Photo: 2015 Laura Reinhardt/World Vision)

I also got to see firsthand how giving families the gift of livestock, something our family has done for years through the World Vision Christmas catalog, helps real people gain an economic foothold.

I met a lot of women in rural Armenia: caring, determined, hard-working women who wanted to better themselves and their families. It was inspiring to see the joy that came along with opportunities that might seem small to you and me, but that provide hope and empowerment to those who need it.

“There is no tool for development that is more effective than the empowerment of women.” –Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN.

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World Vision's child sponsorship program works at the family and community level as well to empower people to break the cycle of poverty together. Join us and sponsor a child in Armenia today!

New Year

Hello Bedford Falls! Hello you old Savings and Loan!

Ok, so I haven't been as far afield as George Bailey, but it sure SEEMS like longer than just a week since I've been here with you. During that time Tim and I celebrated our 18th anniversary at a B & B, and I got Margaret to join me in a little furniture painting project, hoping that some cold hard cash (if it sells) will inspire more mother-daughter projects.

I hope your holidays were good, and if they weren't, I hope you are proud of yourself for just making it through. That is no small thing.

Now that we are easing into 2015, I hope to do a little more writing and speaking, and a lot less snacking.

My BIG NEWS for this winter is that my fleece-lined leggings and I will be going on a World Vision trip to Armenia! When I was invited, it only took me about 5 seconds to say YES! I am looking forward to seeing first-hand the work World Vision does to improve children's lives. I also have A LOT of learning to do about Armenia, its history, and its culture. I can't wait to share my experiences with you here.

I thought for starters you might like to read this World Vision blog post about Armenia and our upcoming trip.

P.S. If you are in the Richmond, VA area, I'd love for you to join me at First Presbyterian Church on January 27. Here's the info.