Nearly 7,800 miles from the sweltering summer heat of Silver Spring, Maryland, stands St. Michael and All Angels Cathedral Church in the Anglican Church of Kenya’s Diocese of Bondo.

Delivering a Mothering Sunday sermon on March 10, 2024, Bishop David Kodia rallied congregants to consider the transformative testimony in John 9 of a man who was born blind but healed by Jesus.

Mothers, he added, are the foundations of society, with the tremendous responsibility of helping confront violent realities.

“You have a critical role to play,” he said. “There comes a time when our testimony alone is powerful enough to transform the attitudes of others, based not on self-centeredness or self-righteousness, but the strong conviction that there is something the Lord has done in our lives.”

Watching it all from Maryland, the Rev. Carolyne Adhola remembered the cathedral’s role in the humble beginnings of the Daughters of Zion (DOZ), a ministry offering support groups for widows and running a home for young widows and their children.

She moved from Kenya to the United States to study Christian formation at Virginia Theological Seminary. She completed her master’s degree in 2023.

“I had been made a deacon in 2009 and priested in 2010, upon which I sought to care for widows by providing knowledge, justice, and care,” she said. “It was at St. Michael and All Angels Cathedral Church that God’s work through me as a woman, widow, and priest began.”

Some church members doubted the goals of her ministry. “Are you going to make it?” she remembers being asked by skeptics.

After pioneering the cathedral’s youth, praise, and worship ministries, she was moved by the comfort and reassurance of Isaiah 54:4, which inspired her to establish DOZ.

“I saw widows at church who were dedicated to serving God. They would come and tell their stories. It was real experience of listening to people and seeing them revived as widows and a faith community,” she said.

With the active support of leading clergy, two groups subsequently emerged, first in Bondo, then in the neighboring Diocese of Southern Nyanza.

“Against the tide of those who still felt widows had nothing to add, the question now became how they would be recognized in church as they serve, and how we could support each other,” she said.

Launching Village Savings and Loan Associations, popularly known across Kenya as “table banking,” became one of DOZ’s earliest initiatives. Through these groups, poor widows would pool their resources and provide loans to each other, often with interest.

“In Bondo’s Parish of St. Michael and All Angels, 13 widows started running with the idea,” she said. “In my home parish of St. Simon’s, Nyaguda, 35 widows also began managing their finances through a savings group.”

Bondo’s oldest widow is 76; its youngest is 28.

“We began seeing the 33 widows of Komolo Orume Parish supporting their church, including through provision of vestments,” she said.

The three groups’ initiatives now include growing three acres of sorghum, rearing 27 goats, tending poultry, making liquid soap for schools within local communities, and growing horticultural crops in a greenhouse.

“Some widows had left the church. Now we see them confidently sharing their perspectives at merry-go-rounds, providing for their families, and building healthy relationships, with additional support for those who still feel marginalized by established church structures,” she said.

There have been challenges.

“Leadership from a distance is presenting fresh challenges, with some widows wondering how sustainable the groups might be in my absence,” she said. “While they are ordinarily not expected to rely on external funding, inflationary pressures and taxes are straining their meager resources.”

With a cumulative shortfall of U.S. $810 in monthly operational budgets, Adhola supports the groups and 186 orphans with her meager resources and donations from well-wishers.

Succession in Kenya’s largely patriarchal families is still a major headache, coupled with mental-health challenges and a church that hasn’t fully realized the suffering of this vulnerable demographic.

“Despite constitutional and legal protections, widows in Kenya are denied their inheritance rights, forcibly evicted from matrimonial homes, or left without access to financial resources,” said Dr. Mbithuka Nzomo, acting chairman of the country’s National Gender and Equality Commission.

“Many are excluded from formal land ownership and have no documentation to claim their land rights,” he added. “Only a fraction of land titles in Kenya are jointly registered or held by women. Consequently, children of widowed persons have not only lost a parent but also a home, a support system, and economic security.”

According to the Kenya Demographic Household Survey (2022), the East African nation has an estimated 2.2 million orphaned children, with approximately 7.6% having lost one parent and 1.1% having lost both parents.

Many of the children are under the care of widows who are thrust into roles of caregiving.

“Widowed persons, especially women, frequently face discrimination, economic insecurity, and harmful traditional practices that strip them of property, dignity, and opportunities,” Nzomo said. “These challenges have a direct and devastating impact on the well-being of their children. Such often leads to dropping out of school, malnutrition, psychological trauma, and exposure to abuse or exploitation.”

But Adhola remains hopeful.

“Opportunities still exist to train widows on their rights; provide support towards mental health care; and boost their table banking operations,” he said. “Komolo Orume Parish currently has a capital base of U.S. $500, followed by St. Simon’s, Nyaguda, at U.S. $400 and St. Michael and All Angels at U.S. $300.”

Through compassion, integrity, resilience, and collaboration, Daughters of Zion’s vision of empowering widows through shared experiences and biblical principles presses on.

From a distance, Adhola still listens, cares, and understands.

Este artículo apareció originalmente en The Living Church y ha sido reimpreso con permiso.

Jesse Masai, a longtime journalist and communications professional who has worked in South East Asia and the U.S., as well as in his native Kenya, serves as East Africa correspondent for The Living Church.