There are not enough words in all of the English language to express how beyond grateful we are for this opportunity doTERRA has given us to participate in the Healing Hands Match Program. doTERRA will match every single dollar we raise up to $10,000. Isn’t this amazing?

Two years ago I was sitting in my husband’s hospital room with a few others who formed the board of our newly established nonprofit. We held our first board meeting right then and there. We all knew the chapters of Dave’s life on earth were coming to an end but the bigger story he played a role in would not be coming to an end. Honestly, I think this carried our family through the pain of losing him more than we realized. It gave us all something to look forward to, his legacy carrying on.

And now, I have sat with the title of widow for nearly two years. The other day I mentioned to my friends that it is like a very uncomfortable garment that you are forced to slip on, the heaviness unbearable at times. Yes, you may grow accustomed to the weight of it, while building up new-found muscles to navigate through life with. BUT you so wish you never had to put the thing on, and you never forget its presence.

The thing is, people can gather around you and help distribute the weight of it a little more evenly. They give you a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen to, a heart to feel you and helping hands to carry out some of the tasks that overwhelm. The added weight of widow-ness is excruciatingly heavy on its own, and the loss leaves a MASSIVE wake of tasks to do, words to be spoken, and trauma to process. So, when a friend takes a precious step close enough to take on some of that you feel the sweet relief you needed but didn’t realize was possible. It’s like a big gasp of fresh air when you weren’t aware you had been holding it.

The other thing to mention is that widow-ness knows no boundaries, it crosses all the lines, it speaks the same language of pain. The aftermath of a death, no matter where you are in the world, plays that same melancholy tune that vibrates the heart + shakes the mind of the one left behind. Crawling up in a ball + rocking your body to the beat may feel like the only option. I didn’t understand this until it was me, the widow. And then I SAW with new eyes and felt with a different heart. One language understood: grief.

That is why this Widow Project means EVEN MORE to me now than it did a few years ago when I was first introduced to the work of the home building projects in Western Kenya. I get it on a whole new level. If you have watched the video I created of my Pamoja Love Story then you have a little deeper understanding already. If you missed it here is the link: The Pamoja Love Story

Death can bring what feels like destruction but it also provides ample opportunity for HOPE + LOVE to break through and break down the lies that you are alone. It takes people mobilizing in love though, we must not just think about it, or become stagnant. We must reach out and DO SOMETHING, even if just a little.

TOGETHER the little grows and becomes a beaming ray of sunshine in someone’s life. Can you imagine for a moment the loss, the loneliness, the overwhelm of your home falling apart and someone knocking on your door saying: “I see you. Are you okay? Can I help you?” That is love in action. That matters deeply.

We would love to have you join us in this mission to reach the hurting + love on them right where they are. With the match program, $325 will build them an entirely NEW HOME! Watch this video on The Home Building Project to see how the building project works with the community to partner together. It really is a thing of beauty. We also have the food program which is $25, matched that gives food supply to two families.

Here is a peek into one of the home projects we partnered with last year: Seen + Loved

This is the link to the MATCH PROGRAM . Make sure your donation goes in on that link or it won’t get matched.

A HUGE shout out to doTERRA for allowing us this opportunity to be matched. The lives of so many families are about to be changed. This hope + love is going to ignite a fire that spreads beyond our wildest imaginations.

So much love sent out to you all!

Can I have your permission to get a little real + raw here? Because to be honest, I don’t have a lot of space for cushy, kind, pleasantries. I guess that is what immense grief does to you. Tack on six months of forced isolation. You have one big ball of surreal life. So here we go, here is my story on finding the purpose in my pain.

I’ll back up a little bit for you. For those that don’t know, the cover photo on this website is of my late husband and I. It was our last trip to Africa together. He looks a bit tired + haggard in the photo because, well, unknown to us when we set out on the trip, his cancer was back with a vengeance. By the time of this photo we knew there was problem. He was in some serious pain but he was praying it was just a weird nerve pain.

It had been a few months since he had completed chemo and the word “ remission” had been mentioned. We felt safe… enough. Because to stay in the space of honesty, once cancer hits you never really feel completely safe again. We had a feeling this may be our last trip together, we prayed it wasn’t so, oh how we prayed. The majority of our kiddos came along with the team we led, outside of our one daughter who stayed back to grow our little grandson in her belly.

This trip was precious to us for so many reasons but mainly because we were once again doing what we loved to do together. And we were doing it with our African friends who had long ago become family. It was a time that held reflection, encouragement + dreams.

As our trip continued his pain increased and by the time we arrived home it was unbearable for him. No sleep, no ability to lay down for longer than 5-10 minutes at any hour of day or night. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, brought relief of any kind. It took over a week to get in for more tests only to find that yes, the cancer was back and growing rapidly. Our only option, bone marrow transplant. I am not going to walk you through the whole journey because it would be a novel. I will say we did everything we knew to do. It just wasn’t meant to be. Seven months after we returned from Africa he passed away in our home. That same afternoon I would be setting up for our daughter’s formal wedding the next day, where I would now walk the aisle to stand alone in front to give her away to her new husband. Surreal. Numb. PAIN.

So, wow… that is a lot, and it is heavy. But that truly is my pain. A pain that doesn’t easily subside. A pain that visits me every day in unexpected ways, and in unforeseen moments. But I want you to hear me… all along I have known with the most assuredness that there was some sort of purpose to come out of my pain. After all, pain brings awareness + compassion. It softens our hearts to a point of understanding that we had no idea existed. The very thing that hurts us the most also has the ability to be the very thing that drives us to bring change + hope.

For instance, in the thick of my husband’s treatments we pressed on to start this nonprofit. In his last hospital stay, where we were trying to buy time to remain together for the wedding, we held our first board meeting. And three months after he passed away I took a dream team with me to serve, and to gather material to use to spread awareness on this very platform. All of this pressing-on in the thick of pain because of the very solid belief there is indeed a purpose in all pain… and when you find it, when you use it, healing will come your way.

Little did we know on those first few flights to Africa, over 10 years ago, that God would be weaving our stories together so tightly with those we were going with the intention to serve. Oh, over the years we have learned so much, how they love so deeply, they serve right back, they give more than they receive. And in the wake of my grief, remembering the kind of LOVE that they so genuinely expressed to us, gave so freely of despite their circumstance; remembering this LOVE drove me to keep going, to keep my eyes focused out whenever I had the ability. I always had a passion for serving the vulnerable but until this I did not have a good understanding of just how vulnerable they felt. Now I had more in common with them than I wanted to. Sorrow + Lament: the treasures we hold but never asked to carry.

So many of our current projects here at Pamoja Love involve helping widows: food programs, medical care, even child sponsorship as it reduces the burden of school fees for many widows. However, today I want to take a minute to share about the Home Building projects we partner with. These situations are widows who live in very dismal circumstances. Their homes are literally falling apart, dirt floors, with many people in a very small space. The homes typically have one, or two, very small rooms . Our partners have witnessed this desperate need way too often and have in return developed a brilliant response to meet the need. They set up this beautiful partnership with the widow in need where she works with her community to provide some of the basic building materials + labor needed to begin the project. Once she has established the groundwork, then we come in to do a large portion of the home, in the end the community comes in to help finish up the mudding of the internal walls. It is a shining example of working TOGETHER for the good: local leaders + church + community building a safe haven for a precious woman who most likely has felt very alone, unseen + unworthy. This is a B E A U T I F U L thing, isn’t it? This is where I find my pain brings me tremendous purpose, it drives me to help continue to reach out in love.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to be a part of something like this? And imagine being able to go and meet the family you helped build the home for, to see them thriving. It’s possible. To see how this project brought people together for the good, developing long lasting ties. Hope restored, you just can’t put a value to that. If you would like to join in this and spread a little hope + love here is the link to donate towards it. $625 gives a very basic but SOLID home with a dirt floor. $1000 and we can give them a concrete floor so they don’t have to worry about jiggers burrowing in their feet. (if you don’t know what I am talking about click here to learn about the jiggers project or click here to watch video)

Can you imagine how our current world circumstances have increased the needs? Ugh. I would absolutely LOVE to raise awareness and provide for the long list of women who are waiting. Want to join me? Let’s talk about creative ways to help meet the need. Reach out to me, I just know God cares so deeply, and so do I! I stand here 100% believing that TOGETHER we can help make a difference. Let’s be HOPE bringers.

Be LOVED,

Kimber Ryan

Founder: Pamoja Love

To read more about the Home Project click below:

A Safe Shelter from the Storm: Homes for the Vulnerable

Click below to learn about jiggers from dirt floors:

Facebook Video: Jiggers