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Anastazia Joseph’s story: Malawi Vulnerable Women Project

When Anastazia Joseph divorced her husband, she was left with four children to care for. She tried getting a job but no one would hire her. She was already 30 and had very few formal qualifications.

In desperation, she took up work as a prostitute. Anastazia Joseph

“I was doing it only so that I should have something by the end of the day to feed myself and my children,” she said.

After a year of this work, she found a job as a security guard and spent long hours watching the properties of various companies. It was lonely, thankless work and she was sometimes treated unfairly.

“The last company I worked at would take deductions from my salary for mistakes that I didn’t even realise I was doing,” Anastazia said.

She had to keep going to provide for her children because she had no other options.

Then on 17th October, 2017, something happened that changed her life forever.

“My church had a crusade in one of big stadiums in Lilongwe and the preacher shared about eternal life and about what one needs in order to attain this everlasting life,” she said

Though she was a faithful church member, Anastazia had never thought about her own need for eternal life.

“At the end of the crusade, the preacher asked if anyone wanted to commit their lives to Jesus so that He could be their Master, so I raised my hand.”

She followed the pastor’s prayer, confessing her sin and giving her life to Christ.

Not long after this, Anastazia switched companies and started guarding the property of a group called African Enterprise Malawi. After a few months of work the team leader, who had noticed the long hours she was doing, told her about a sewing school for women that African Enterprise ran every year.

“He said this when he saw how challenging the job I was doing, especially as a lady on my own. I didn’t hesitate!”

She ran to the project organiser to apply and was accepted in the 2018 class of women.

“For me to come to this vocational centre is by God’s love which I saw through the National Team Leader of African Enterprise Malawi,” she testified.

“I am being reached with the Gospel every day and have already learnt how to run a sewing machine and make straight lines!”

Things are looking up for Anastazia. Not only is she learning a new skill with which to make money and start a business, but God has also answered her prayers and she is engaged to be married.

Christ, her Master, is providing for her needs through the help of African Enterprise.

The Makings of a Modern Woman – Malawi

In her mid-thirties, Martha Njovulema was on her way to becoming a modern woman: she had tried her hand at teaching, baking, and small-business running, was a working mother keen to help her husband provided financially for their four children, and was on the look out for further training.

But she was not happy.

“After the death of my mother and father, I got into strange habits,” said Martha. “I was fond of fighting, lying and stealing, using these as ‘powers’ to get what I needed in life.”

Though she went to church, Martha admitted, “I was not in good relationship with God.”

But then Martha heard about African Enterprise Malawi’s vocational centre.

“I joined it with the aim of learning some skills to become more self- supportive and raise my standard of my living,” she said.

However, by the time she left, she gained something far more valuable: having heard the Gospel through the teaching and staff at African Enterprise, Martha, for the first time, truly received Christ as her Saviour.

Last month, July 2017, Martha was among 22 women who graduated from AE Malawi’s 2017 program – and she couldn’t stop smiling.

“I have learnt to mix with people of all different backgrounds at this course,” she said, “and I hope to be a reliable female tailor in my community.”

But her life had changed in far deeper ways, thanks to AE:

“I have heard the Good News of salvation,” said Martha, “and my life is saved through Jesus Christ, who I received to be Lord and Saviour of my life.”