Bag of Rice Project #58 -A visit to the Etim family

Learn how you can be apart of helping people who are in need with our A Thrifty Mom Bag of Rice Campaign. In 2016 we started helping a young man named Ikechukwu from Nigeria. Summer of 2019 we were able to visit his family in Aba, Nigeria. While there we saw widespread poverty and lack of basic needs. We would like to invite you to help meet one of those basic needs, by providing Nigerian families with rice. This gift will feed a large family for a few months, or a single person a year. It also reminds them they are loved, and brings most of them to tears… as a full bag of rice is one of the most generous gifts they will ever receive. You can also read about other families we have been able to bless here.

The Following story is about the Etim family, their bag of rice was donated thanks to Cat Neiheisel – In honor of all our employees at Neiheisel Steel Corporation. This is the 58th bag of rice our program has been able to give away thanks to generous donations.

We met this Mrs Etim by chance, we were visiting the Elijah family (who got bag number 57) and I noticed a mud house that was besides their house. It looked so rundown and I wondered who was staying there. I asked around and they told me an old woman stays there. We entered into the house and it was barely enough to fit more than one person at a time.

Front view of the house

So on entering the mud house, we discovered Mrs Mary Etim, an old woman who is sick. She has a neighbor who helps take care of her. Her name is Eno Monday and she told us that Mrs Mary has been sick for a long time and that she is a widow and her children have abandoned her and no longer come to visit her. My heart broke as the sick Mrs Mary forced herself to sit up as we entered to see her even when we told her not to worry. They do not have a kitchen and use a small shed outside to do their cooking. Mrs Eno also makes a local delicacy called Akara there and that provides the little money they live by.

Place where they cook and make Akara

We did not really bother explaining too long to Mrs Etim about the purpose of our visit, only that we brought food for her. She was very excited and even in her sick state, we could see that it has been a long time she has had people visit her or help her in any way. The visit to Mrs Etim was not planned and we felt a hand guide us to visit her and we felt glad we heeded that prompting and hope we will be guided to visit more families like this.

Mrs Etim

Learn how you can be apart of helping people who are in need with our A Thrifty Mom Bag of Rice Campaign. You can also read about other families we have been able to bless here.