by: Kevin Squires | Sr. Director of International Programs
As Saba awoke that morning, she knew it was a huge day, a day that could potentially bring long-term stability for her and her children. It wasn’t just a typical meeting she was preparing for, it was a meeting that could launch her business to another level. For years she had been making spices and selling them to individuals in her community, but on this day, she was granted a meeting with a local shop owner who desired to sell her spices throughout her stores.
It could open up the possibility to wholesale Saba’s spices in bulk. In some ways, it seemed like an Ethiopian version of NBC’s hit show Shark Tank. She was ecstatic about the possibilities of getting her spices into a shop that would be sold to a larger audience, bringing in more revenue, and allowing her family to finally prosper after all the years of struggle. As she left her house and anxiously walked to her meeting, she reminisced along the way about her journey that began with hopelessness.
Seven years earlier, Saba’s husband abandoned her and her four children, never to be seen again. As a Christian woman, she leaned heavily on her faith and the truth of God’s Word. Micah 7:7 says, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” Even with faith and hope, Saba and her children struggled to pay rent, and she couldn’t afford to feed her children. She would go door to door offering to clean peoples’ homes and to wash their clothes, trying desperately to earn enough money to make it through the day. Hopelessness began to weigh on her. Through these interactions with her neighbors, Saba’s story reached Mulugeta, a local pastor in her community.
As it often turns out in life, hopelessness is the doorway to hope. Pastor Mulugeta invited her into his church and into World Orphans Home Based Care program, designed to empower families like Saba’s to flourish. Mulugeta encouraged her that “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-4). Through that encouragement and the love and care offered by the church, Saba’s life began to turn around. Her church provided food and business training, which allowed Saba to focus her time and energy on paying the rent. Her church provided a loan to go with her business training, and Saba launched her first small business selling plastic goods like bowls, cups, plates, and baskets to those in her community. As her business grew, she diversified her products, adding homemade spices to her product line. With continued growth, little by little, she used the money from her loan to buy a food scale which allowed her to better package and sell her spices, potentially opening a door selling to local shops. After spending five years in the HBC program, Saba graduated from the program, received a diploma, and most importantly, carried the dignity and confidence to continue to build her business.
With all these thoughts and emotions going through her head as she walked towards her meeting, Saba confidently sat down with the local shop owner. The shop owner loved Saba’s spices and desperately wanted to sell them in her shops, but one thing was required: the shop owner needed to see Saba’s official credentials for her business. Surprised by the need for credentials, Saba grew quite nervous. In some ways, she saw herself as an abandoned widow with little to offer. In other ways, she saw herself as a newly confident woman and empowered mother who had walked through the doorway from hopelessness to hope. So she scrambled through her mind to come up with the only thing she could think of–her certificates from World Orphans business training and her graduation diploma from World Orphans HBC program that Pastor Mulugeta had given her. After presenting those two credentials, she was awarded the contract to sell her spices in the local shop, expanding her business and providing a long-term solution to sustain her family.
Today, Saba no longer struggles to pay rent. Her family never thinks about not having food on the table. With extra money on hand, she even went to court to battle for the land rights that her ex-husband had owned, with the court recently ruling that the property rightfully belongs to Saba’s children. With that blessing, Saba and her children have started farming the land, growing crops that will further expand the family business.
Saba never tells her story without adamantly pointing to Christ, her pastor, and her church as the heroes of her life. Her continual prayers and relentless efforts to follow Christ led her to a life of hope that carried her through the darkest of times.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity.’” (Jeremiah 29:11-14)
This article was originally published in the World Orphans Spring Insight Magazine 2025.