Beautiful Blessings is a ministry of Sharise Riether in Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a safe place where babies and young children are cared for while their mothers are learning a trade to lift themselves out of poverty. Sharise’s goal is to love and care for children so they know the love of God, combat malnutrition, and have life and joy in their eyes. Sharise explains below how Beautiful Blessings partners with the Tabitha Centers to make a difference in the lives of mothers and children.
“We have heard good reports from the women and children who are coming. A supervisor for Tabitha Centers said that one woman who was skipping classes because of her child, has started attending them consistently! The Mama told them that it was because she knew her child would be fed and taken care of, so it gave her even more reason to come to her class. Beautiful Blessings is making a difference.
Tabitha was started by a Congolese woman (Mama Claudine) who began teaching a small group of women how to sew. It has now grown to over 200 locations! Tabitha partners with churches in Congo to open a “center.” These centers then get everything donated in order to start well- meaning sewing machines, etc. Then the center charges a small amount of money to teach the women how to sew (they have also added cosmetology and hospitality “degrees”) and that’s how the center continues to flourish. They have graduated a large number of women and many have testimonies as to how they have gotten work and been able to support their families afterward.
Also, in Tabitha, they started a program called Global Fingerprints. This is a sponsorship program for girls ages 15-20 who cannot read or write and are not in school. They are also in poverty-stricken situations. They start by learning to read and write Lingala and then move onto French and then they can enter the trade of their choice.
This information is important because these are the ministries Beautiful Blessings is partnered with in Congo. Beautiful Blessings watches the children of women who are already enrolled in Global Fingerprints in a specific Tabitha Center near us. These are the most vulnerable girls and children and the ones who often do not have someone to watch their child while they are in classes. While the women go to their classes at the Tabitha Center, we are playing, teaching and feeding their children. When they finish their class, they come and pick them up. If we grow, we hope to open up Beautiful Blessing to any woman already enrolled in the Tabitha Center near us. After that, the big goal is to open new Beautiful Blessing programs near other needy Tabitha Centers.”
