On a hot and sunny day in the middle of Kampala, the capital of
Uganda, a man was leaving his church prayer meeting where he was praying that
God’s purposes would be carried out in his life and that he would
be able to earn an income. At the very
same time three women were praying for a soap project through which God could
provide health and hygiene for the girls living at the The Fortress, a home for
pregnant teens. Miraculously the man and
the three women met each other on a random crowded street and everything
changed in that moment for all of them!
It happened like this…
Grace Mwangi and I had only one full day left in Uganda. We had been working for a week with the girls
at The Fortress, had ordered a bunch of jewelry, counseled them and enjoyed
playing with their babies. It had been
wonderful, but one glaring reality kept gnawing at me. In the entire house I never saw one bar of
soap or liquid detergent! Everything
from hands to dishes, to floors seemed to be washed with just water. Babies were crawling all over those floors
but they seemed far from hygienic. As
Grace and I discussed it we wondered how we could help. We thought about buying lots of bars of soap
but they would soon be used up and then what?
Grace wondered out loud if they could MAKE soap! She used to make it in Kenya and had a vague
idea of the components. We asked where
one could buy soap ingredients and Ann, a friend of The Fortress thought she
knew. So we started our trek downtown to
the wholesale market area. We walked
block after block weaving between moving cars and dodging speeding motorcycles
clutching our bags tightly in the mass of people. After a sweaty hour, Ann was stumped. We were all praying but the place wasn't
anywhere to be found! Suddenly she
spotted a man carrying an unlabeled jug of green liquid. How she knew it was shampoo is beyond me but
figured he must know the soap ingredient supplier. He DID and in fact she
convinced him to take us there. It’s
a good thing he did because it was buried in the back of an alley of shops with
huge unmarked blue plastic barrels just outside the soap shop. The makeshift shelves behind the counter were
lined with random recycled jugs, soda bottles and plastic bags filled with
caustic soda, silicate, glycerine, petroleum jelly, soda ash, perfumes and
coloring agents. Our noses stung, then we sneezed and our eyes watered with the
huge amounts of chemicals that surrounded us.
I wished we had a way of making only natural soaps but no one seemed to
know how to make an effective soap that way and the internet was nearly
impossible to access. We reminded
ourselves to make sure all the supplies were kept far out of the reach of the babies
at The Fortress.
We soon found out our newfound friend Immanuel was an expert in
soap making and just happened to have the lists of ingredients for several
kinds of soap in his backpack that day!
Ann is very persuasive. She not
only got him to stay and help us choose the correct ingredients, she even
convinced him to follow us back to teach the girls how to make the soap that
very day! We bought all we needed to
make more than 40 liters of liquid multipurpose cleaner, 30 liters of shampoo,
a dozen jars of Vaseline-like “Jelly” and
scores of bars of hand soap!
At first Immanuel said he needed to be paid $200 to teach the two
days of classes but when Ann told him what a great cause it would be to help
these girls he came down to $60 plus the cost of all supplies. The supplies came to $140 so about $200 the
girls got trained in something that could help supply The Fortress’ needs
but would also give the girls personal business potential when they left the
home and needed to support her child for years to come!
Ann was ecstatic thinking about the possibilities. She was taking notes like crazy right along
with the girls so she could teach her neighbors. The girls were so excited they
started rubbing the shampoo onto their heads as soon as it got produced. They began dreaming up packaging and
marketing plans. They were sure every
hair salon in the area would buy huge amounts from them and their church was
big enough to provide a LOT of buyers. I
got more hugs than I have gotten from ANY project ever! What a satisfying way to help! It is what CWOW is all about. We didn’t GIVE soap. We taught them how to make soap and now it is
changing their world!
