Site Stories – Christian Job Corps

CWJC Impacts Mom of Six, Bringing a New Hope for a Future Generation

November 25, 2024

A strengthened faith, a supportive faith family, and a hopeful future are all things Desiree Haller feels she gained by participating in the programs Christian Women’s Job Corps (CWJC), a WMU Compassion Ministry, has to offer.

Desiree grew up in Tennessee’s foster care system before aging out at 18 years old. She later moved to Louisiana to escape a domestic violence situation. There she met a friend who “was Jesus” to her. This person showed Desiree God’s love through constant hospitality and kindness. When this friend invited Desiree to church, she happily accepted the invitation. Desiree gave her life fully to Christ in 2017.

As a mother to five children, Desiree began to feel God calling her to make a change. She had been working with a Christian company for several years at this point, but it became clear to her that she needed to further her education to be the best example she could be for her children. Unsure where or how to begin, she reached out to her friend, who put her in touch with the CWJC site in Monroe, Louisiana.

After successfully registering and being accepted into this free program, Desiree began her journey to earn her high school diploma while pregnant with her sixth child. Being busy is an understatement to describe this season of her life, but Desiree trusted and leaned on God to help her put in the hard work necessary to achieve her calling. Some days she would work 12-to-16-hour shifts before picking up her children and then going to school. After two years, on May 23, 2024, Desiree proudly graduated with her high school diploma as her children cheered loudly from the audience.

Beyond a diploma, CWJC offered Desiree and her family hope. She was given the opportunity to share her testimony for the first time, which brought healing and inspired others. Her faith was challenged and strengthened through the devotions and times of prayer she was able to become involved in. As she described all CWJC provides to its participants, she said, “It’s more than just education. You build a sisterhood; you build a family.”

Now Desiree is registered to start her nursing degree at Louisiana Tech University. She is a proud and grateful alumna of the CWJC site in Monroe. She also earned membership in its honor society as a result of her work ethic, punctuality, and character. She hopes her story will inspire others to embrace change, put in hard work, and rely on the Lord through it all.

To see how you can play a vital role as Christian Women’s Job Corps and Christian Men’s Job Corps continue impacting people’s lives or to get in touch with a site near you, visit christianjobcorps.com.

Aubrey Morrow served as the marketing intern for WMU in summer 2024. She is a junior at Troy University.

WMU’s Sybil Bentley Dove Award Helps Mother of 3 Continue Nursing Journey

Published: July 19, 2024

Giselle Gonzalez-Rivera said she wondered if she was crazy going back to school in her late 30s with three young children.

But she found a group that encouraged her — Moving Forward Chattanooga, a Christian Women’s Job Corps site — and in April she finished her licensed practical nurse certificate at Chattanooga State Community College.

“Christian Women’s Job Corps encouraged and supported me so much,” she said of the group, which helps women with skills for life and work. “They saw the potential in me that I had not seen.”

Beth Ray, site coordinator for Moving Forward Chattanooga, said Gonzalez-Rivera “gives God glory for the whole process.”

“Giselle is a blessing to anyone she meets. She always has a smile and a kind word,” Ray said. “She’s a super sweet person with a sweet family, and she’s grown in her faith.”

When Gonzalez-Rivera came to Moving Forward Chattanooga, she began working on six weeks of personal development, which included communication and financial management. She also took an inventory to help her identify careers that interested her, and site leaders helped her find educational resources and funding for school.

Ray said in Gonzalez-Rivera’s early days there, she was shy and reserved, but she “has really blossomed since.”

Several weeks after finishing her licensed practical nurse certificate in April, Gonzalez-Rivera was named the recipient of the Sybil Bentley Dove Award, which the WMU Foundation gives annually to a recipient who desires to improve herself through the acquisition of skills or academic pursuits that will lead to self-reliant living or to give assistance and nurture to the development of her children.

This summer, Gonzalez-Rivera started the bridge program to start classes this fall at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to become a registered nurse. She said the award came at the perfect time.

“It has helped me so much,” she said. “When they gave me the award, I said, ‘Thank you Lord, this is all you — you saw how much I was in need.’”

Gonzalez-Rivera said she’s always had a heart to help others and knew that was her purpose in life.

“It is never too late to accomplish your purpose in life — some of us just move a little slower than others, and that is totally normal,” she said. “We are afraid of the outcome instead of trusting our Savior.”

Gonzalez-Rivera said she has learned to teach her three girls that with God, there are no limits to what they can do.

“We can reach the sky if we trust the Lord and He will guide us,” she said.

by Grace Thornton, The Baptist Paper

WMU Foundation Grants Help CWJC Sites Expand Their Reach, Deepen Their Help

Published: July 19, 2024

Peggy Meeks said Cross Walk to Life, the Christian Women’s Job Corps site she leads in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has one common need — English classes.

“Our group really is non-English-speaking people,” she said. “They’re comfortable in our smaller setting, whereas so many of them can’t go sign up for something at the community college — it frightens them. We want to take them as far as we can so then they have the confidence to move on.”

One big tool in that process is a new curriculum that Cross Walk to Life implemented this past school year.

“The other curriculum we were using, people weren’t advancing,” Meeks said. “We had a new volunteer who is a retired ESL teacher come in and say, ‘There’s much better curriculum out there than what you’re using.’”

Since Cross Walk to Life made the switch, students are advancing and gaining confidence, Meeks said.

Ministries Expand with Help of Grants

And thanks to a grant from the WMU Foundation, Cross Walk to Life will be able to broaden their class offerings even more. “The grant allows us to purchase four levels,” Meeks said.

In addition to the grant given to Cross Walk to Life, the WMU Foundation gave seven other grants to CWJC sites, which offer women the opportunity to reach their full potential and improve their situation through job and life skills training.

CWJC of McLennan County in Waco, Texas, plans to use it to provide support for students working toward their GED who may need qualified learning disability testing to receive accommodations for their needs.

Helping them get their GED in this way can “change the narrative of their education experience for the rest of their life” and “shift the education journey for an entire family,” said Paula Winstead, testing administrator of CWJC of McLennan County.

Gulf Coast CWJC in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, also plans to use their grant to help participants take the HiSET high school equivalency test and help with transportation to and from classes.

CWJC of Nacogdoches, Texas, plans to use their grant to purchase laptops for program participants to use in a computer lab. Christian Job Corps of Gregg County in Longview, Texas, also plans to use the grant to update a computer lab for the new Christian Men’s Job Corps component of their ministry, as well as hire a CWJC assistant who would focus on caring for alumni and former students.

RISE, a CWJC site located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and SWC Transformation Place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, both plan to use the grant to support their general operations and expansion as their participant numbers are growing.

And Women’s Learning Center in Monroe, Louisiana, to purchase more curriculum for their students so that each participant can have her own workbook. They also want to provide small rewards for their students’ accomplishments.

Charitable Donations Change Lives Forever

Peggy Darby, president of the WMU Foundation, said the gifts that support these grants make a big difference.

“Your gifts to the Sybil Bentley Dove Endowment help to support Christian Women’s Job Corps by providing scholarships to participants, program development grants for sites and a grant for Dove award recipients,” she said. “Whether you make a one-time gift or become a monthly donor, your support will help to change lives forever.”

by Grace Thornton, The Baptist Paper

Four CWJC Graduates Awarded Scholarships to Help with Next Steps

Published: July 19, 2024

Marie Beam says she’s always liked working on cars. She found out early on that she didn’t like being stranded — she’d rather be able to do something about it when her car had problems.

“I started learning how to do it myself,” she said.

Then she started helping the women in her apartment complex who frequently had car trouble.

“It’s something I love to do,” Beam said. “So I started thinking maybe I could do it as a career too.”

Through Christian Women’s Job Corps of Tyler, Texas, she’s had the support to enroll in college and start making that happen.

“I’ve got six classes left,” she said.

And thanks to the Faye Dove Scholarship, a gift provided by the WMU Foundation to help a CWJC graduate further her education, Beam now has money to buy the tools to finish her associate’s degree in automotive mechanics at Northeast Texas Community College.

The scholarship will also help her continue to provide support for her four children, who range in age from 2 to 12.

“Everything I learn, I get out there and show my kids what I learn,” she said. “Hopefully it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

Beam was one of two recipients of the Faye Dove Scholarship this year — Evelyn Ribeiro, a graduate of Begin Anew Nashville, also received funds to put toward tuition at Middle Tennessee State University.

Ribeiro got connected with Begin Anew after coming to the United States from Brazil just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Through the program there, she earned her GED and began pursuing a career in nursing.

“Every opportunity that comes my way, I can see that God is behind it,” Ribeiro said.

Two other CWJC graduates — Laurien Assis of Begin Anew Nashville and Jacklyn Powell of Heart and Hands of East Texas in Lindale, Texas — also received a CWJC Academic Scholarship.

Assis will use the funds to continue to pursue her degree in business administration and management at Williamson College.

Studying there “aligns with my desire to fulfill God’s mission for my life, and I am confident that the college’s educators and resources, combined with the support from Begin Anew, will continue to guide me toward realizing this purpose,” she said.

Powell’s scholarship will help her pay for tuition and books at Tyler Junior College. After losing her husband, she walked through some dark times, including a night in jail and a journey to sobriety. At Heart & Hands of East Texas, she gained skills and confidence and surrendered her life to Jesus.

Currently, Powell lives with her parents while raising her two children, one of whom has special needs. Her goal is to become a counselor who can help others experience the love and hope of Jesus no matter what they’re walking through.

“My journey is not done yet, and I still have some things to do, but God is showing up and showing out daily,” Powell said. “I am blessed and have been born again through Christ.”

Peggy Darby, president of the WMU Foundation, said the gifts that fund the scholarships for Powell and the three other recipients make a difference.

by Grace Thornton, The Baptist Paper

Photo of Marie Beam courtesy of CWJC of Tyler, Texas

CWJC Helps Women Find Who They Are In Christ

Published: September 15, 2022

One student — that’s all Christian Women’s Job Corps of Carlsbad, New Mexico, had on their class roster when they were getting close to starting their first semester in early 2021.

And even though it was just one, Margaret Bemis felt like it was just the right time to get started. It had not been an easy road to get there, and she felt like God was opening the doors.

Bemis said she and Cherish Lexvold, her co-director at the time, had just been getting things started to open the CWJC site in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

But even though the situation made getting set up more complicated, Bemis felt like the community needed CWJC’s services more than ever. CWJC, a ministry of Woman’s Missionary Union, offers women the opportunity to reach their full potential and improve their situation through job and life skills training.

So Bemis and Lexvold continued to push through, make plans and enlist mentors. They got the support of local churches — Church Street Church of the Nazarene, which provides the building and an operational budget, as well as First Baptist Church and First Presbyterian Church.

And when only one person signed up for their first semester, they kept going.

That first participant “was so eager to take the course,” Bemis said.

About two days before class started, a second woman signed up.

“I really do believe it was God saying, ‘The door is open; do it,’” Bemis said. “We probably had the best volunteer-student ratio that semester we’ve ever had. There were those two ladies, and they thrived and are still thriving and have grown since then.”

Both women had come from difficult backgrounds, and one had bounced around from place to place and didn’t know where to settle in, Bemis said. “She was just kind of blowing in the wind, and she was hoping she would get skills to get a better job.”

Now that woman is a spokesperson and a cheerleader for CWJC, Bemis said. “What she always ends up saying to the other ladies in our program is ‘you think you’re here so you can get a better job, and what you are going to find out is who you are in Christ.’”

The other student in that first class was struggling with addiction and now has a different story, Bemis said. “The strength of her testimony has been that, yes, she can get the job she wants now because she has much better skills — she really took hold of all the job skills that were offered to her. But she also said I know that I had strongholds that were keeping me from moving forward. I don’t have a struggle with alcohol anymore because it doesn’t offer me what I need.”

Since that original class, CWJC of Carlsbad has seen 12 more women graduate, including a 72-year-old widow whom they helped start a seamstress business after her husband passed away.

“She is thriving spiritually, and so is her business — she’s having to turn business away,” Bemis said.

A recent site development grant from the WMU Foundation’s Sybil Bentley Dove Endowment is helping CWJC of Carlsbad prepare to equip even more women. The endowment supports CWJC by providing scholarships to participants and a grant for Dove Award recipients in addition to site development grants.

Bemis said the funds they received for their site are going to purchase licenses for business software such as Canva Pro, Slack Pro, Adobe programs and QuickBooks. The grant also helped them purchase a new computer curriculum they will begin using in the fall.

“It’s been amazing to see what God has done,” Bemis said.

by Grace Thornton, writer for The Baptist Paper

Cross Walk to Life Staff Member Says God Put Pieces in Place for Ministry

Published: September 1, 2022

After Ana L. Uribe got married, the couple’s path took them all over the place — from Houston, Texas, to Las Cruces, New Mexico, to Germany and then to Alabama.

But in 2020, the couple couldn’t shake the feeling that God wanted them to retrace their steps.

“We felt God keep moving our hearts to move back to Las Cruces, but there were no jobs for my husband,” Uribe said. “So we said, ‘If God wants us to go back, He will open doors.’ And He sure did.”

Uribe’s husband was offered a good job at the place he used to work, and they rejoined the church they had been a part of there — Iglesia Bautista Buenas Nuevas (Good News Baptist Church). But not long after they moved back, a tragedy happened — the pastor and his wife both died of COVID-19.

Uribe said her husband knew instantly that the call to pastoral ministry that he had been running from for a while had finally caught up to him.

“That was the feeling God had placed in our hearts to come back to Las Cruces,” she said.

He became the church’s pastor, and Uribe led the women’s ministry.

She revived Mujer Virtuosa (Virtuous Woman), a ministry that she had started when they lived there 12 years before, hosting a monthly breakfast and inviting women from all walks of life to hear the gospel, find community and talk through any life issues they might be facing.

Uribe’s heart was in this kind of ministry. And it wasn’t long before an opportunity came along to do more of it — as administrative assistant for Cross Walk to Life, a Christian Women’s Job Corps site that offers women the opportunity to reach their full potential and improve their situation through job and life skills training.

“I got hired and started working there part time,” Uribe said, noting that she appreciated that one purpose of the ministry was to serve the large Hispanic community there.

Her fluency in both languages made her a perfect fit, along with her technology skills and heart for the ministry, said Carol Gilliland, director of Cross Walk to Life.

“We need someone who is good with technology and has good office skills so she can take care of the necessary things to make the ministry run smoothly,” Gilliland said. “She’s a whiz-bang at it.”

In the time Uribe has been there, she’s helped draw more women to Cross Walk to Life by networking in Spanish on Facebook. She’s also taught classes in English and Spanish in addition to organizing the ministry’s schedule and newsletters and taking care of other logistics. Starting in September, she will teach a new class on money management that the women have been asking for.

“She’s a blessing from God,” Gilliland said. “She’s very gifted, and she’s helped us reach people. She’s the glue that holds us together.”

The funding for Uribe’s role comes from a site grant from the WMU Foundation’s CWJC/CMJC Endowment, something Gilliland says she’s grateful for.

“I love what God has done at Cross Walk to Life through her help,” Gilliland said.

Uribe said she’s thankful for the way God has moved everything around to get her and her husband — along with their two sons, who are now teenagers — in the right place and provide what they needed to get there.

“It’s been a great experience,” she said.

Many of the women now go to her church also, and one of Cross Walk to Life’s participants who had no previous experience with computers became the church secretary after graduating from the program. Uribe is grateful to see those kinds of stories.

“It’s been a blessing all around to be a part of this community and the women that we’re serving,” she said.

by Grace Thornton, writer for The Baptist Paper

Entrepreneurship Program for Women in Texas Gets Boost from Grant

Published: August 15, 2022

Sometimes things start with one person who is really passionate, and then they take off from there.

That’s Lydia Tate’s opinion at least.

She’s seeing it happen at Christian Women’s Job Corps of McLennan County, Texas, where an already-thriving ministry has moved to the next level thanks to a college student volunteer and a program development grant from WMU Foundation.

Tate, director of the CWJC site, said the idea for their new entrepreneurship program started in early 2020 when she spoke to a business class at Baylor University. One student — Jacob Lackey — was particularly interested in the mission and vision of the CWJC site and wanted to see how he might help.

Seeing, responding to a need

“Afterward he came up to me to talk about entrepreneurship and the vision he has for bringing those skills to the community,” Tate said. “He offered to volunteer and bring his knowledge in entrepreneurship to the program. He offered to bring a curriculum to us to teach this concept to our women.”

Lackey had started his first successful business at 14 and gave a TEDx Talk about it at 16.

“I see this need, I want to meet it and I’m passionate about it,” he said.

He said he wanted to be able to share with the women at CWJC of McLennan County that it’s OK to have challenges and barriers against starting a business — he experienced that uphill battle as a teenager.

But it’s doable if someone is passionate, Lackey said.

“Only 30 percent or so of entrepreneurs have a high school diploma,” he said. “It’s not a field dominated by people with doctorates.”

So in spring 2020, Lackey led a three-day workshop via Zoom for students at the CWJC site to teach them about entrepreneurship, evaluate their own ideas and see if they had the expertise and passion to get started in their own business. He also gave them resources to plan their next steps.

“I loved seeing how engaged the women were and the ideas they already had,” said Lackey, who is now a Baylor graduate and member of the CWJC of McLennan County board of directors.

‘Wildly successful’

Tate said the workshop was “wildly successful — everybody loved it.”

The grant will be seed money to start wrapping some structure around the idea, she said.

“Essentially what we would like to do was to start a program where a student will come in and take a host of classes given by volunteers in the community. They will learn about marketing strategies, digital spaces, brick-and-mortar spaces and how those happen,” Tate said. “They will learn about everything from what does it look like to have a business all the way to launching a business.”

CWJC would also have student interns who would have hands-on learning opportunities through running an online shop modeled after Woman’s Missionary Union’s WorldCrafts space, she said.

“Those interns would complete a year with us from September to May, then apply for a micro loan to start their own business,” Tate said.

“Our goal is to fund those micro loans and those opportunities so that a woman can start with us not knowing anything about a business to starting and funding a business. That’s the hope, and WMU Foundation has created a space for us to start dreaming about that.”

The entrepreneurship program is part of the site’s GLOW (Growth Learning Opportunities for Women) program, which offers free job skills and career building workshops and classes.

Tate said they hope through the entrepreneurship program to “really and truly empower women to start their own businesses and have some ownership over their income.”

by Grace Thornton, writer for The Baptist Paper

Ministry Helps Those Seeking Employment

Kim McDermott serves as administrative coordinator for Pivot ministry, a role supported by a recent site grant from the WMU Foundation. (Photo courtesy of Pivot)

Published: August 1, 2022

Kim McDermott had been unemployed for six months, steadily interviewing for jobs with no success, when a friend told her about the classes offered at Pivot.

“I heard about this and thought, ‘What’s it going to hurt? I’ll give it a try,’” McDermott said.

What is Pivot?

Pivot, a ministry that uses the Christian Women’s Job Corps classroom model with one-on-one mentors, has served women in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, area since 2018.

Carol Polk, Pivot’s executive director, said it opened after two years of research, during which time they found that women with no dependents were often turned away by agencies.

“So that’s what we focused on,” she said. “We just had our fifth graduation.”

So far, Pivot has had a graduation rate of 75 percent — more than double what was predicted, Polk said. The women who come through the program learn life skills and job readiness, take part in regular Bible studies and have a personal Christian mentor.

“It’s an incredible ministry,” she said.

McDermott agrees. She said her experience as a participant at Pivot in 2019 was “amazing.”

‘Helped me get my confidence back’

“I thoroughly enjoyed every session,” she said. “I was beginning to think I was unemployable. Pivot helped me get my confidence back.”

And a few months back, McDermott became a part of Pivot in a new way — she’s serving in a part-time role as administrative coordinator.

“I’m loving what I do here,” she said.

Her role is supported by a site grant from the CWJC/CMJC Endowment that the Woman’s Missionary Union(WMU) Foundation recently awarded to Pivot, a gift Polk said they were “blown away” to receive.

Pivot Plus

The grant is also supporting Pivot’s new alumnae association, Pivot Plus, which offers graduates a chance to stay connected and participate in Bible study and further professional development. Two volunteers have taken ownership of that new effort and run with it, Polk said.

She hopes it will help Pivot continue to come alongside women like McDermott over the long haul and offer support and community.

McDermott’s story has highlighted God’s faithfulness, and she has been a great fit for the Pivot team too, Polk said. She said McDermott’s computer skills are strong, she’s a great researcher and support person and has a cheerful demeanor and positive approach.

“She turned her life back around and now has two part time jobs and is faithful and dedicated and a joy to work with,” Polk said.

by Grace Thornton, writer for The Baptist Paper

Begin Anew

Published: May 1, 2022

Christian Women’s Job Corps/Christian Men’s Job Corps site Begin Anew of Middle Tennessee is a ministry that empowers individuals to overcome obstacles created by poverty by providing education, mentoring, and resources. Its core values focus on believing “everyone deserves a chance to begin anew and walk a journey to a brighter future.” This belief is based on 2 Corinthians 5:17, which says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

These basic tenets are epitomized by the success stories of people like Georgia Alexandra (“I would not be able to do any of this without God”) and Kina Jones (who received the Sybil Bentley Dove Award), both graduates of the program, and Julie Russell, a former program manager who loved to help students “discover their unrealized potential.”

In addition, Sharon Lunsford Tyler said, “I have been a volunteer several times in the past and now serve on the executive board of the organization as the WMU representative. I have seen firsthand how families have been touched by the ministry of Begin Anew!”

One of the main emphases of the program remains Bible study, where participants can feel safe on their journey of life.

To find out more about the people who have found a new chance in life and are pursuing dreams, go to this ministry’s website at beginanew.org.

CWJC of Rusk County Texas

Published: April 7, 2022

When it comes to impacting women’s lives through the ministry of Christian Women’s Job Corps, Christie Gambrell’s basic perspective is: “At CWJC, we help meet the felt needs of women as we help them find their true worth through Jesus.”

As executive director of Christian Women’s Job Corps of Rusk County, Texas, Gambrell has worked with hundreds of women over the past several years. CWJC of Rusk County, which opened its doors in 2002 in Henderson, Texas, seeks to reach women with the love of Jesus while helping equip them for life and employment.

Among CWJC’s diverse offerings are English as a Second Language, which includes citizenship classes, and Life Skills training, which addresses such topics as money management, healthy relationships, computer classes, Bible storying and mentoring. Volunteers also provide literacy and high school equivalency (GED) tutoring. Additionally, CWJC of Rusk County is one of six CWJC programs in the nation that include a WorldCrafts artisan group, a fair trade compassion ministry of National Woman’s Missionary Union.

Noting that “we work with about 50 women every year and usually about that many volunteers,” Gambrell said, “When you work with this many women, you see women who succeed and women who don’t. But that’s true in every form of education and Christian ministry.

“We’ve had some wonderful successes,” she added. “Each semester we see women successfully enter the workforce. This past year we had four women who received their citizenship. We have women who’ve gone to college. We have one who’s working on her master’s degree right now.”

She said they also have participants “who we’ve gotten to see their children go to college and their children get awards which is so fantastic because that goes back to the founding thought of Christian Women’s Job Corps that you’re changing the children’s lives and changing the family.”

MENTORS CHEER ON PARTICIPANTS

Gambrell noted that recruiting mentors typically is one of the biggest challenges for most CWJC sites.

Participants “who are able to have mentors are the ones that I always see the greatest success with,” she added. “I don’t think people understand the importance of having somebody who’s your personal cheerleader, someone to stick with you and encourage you. That’s especially true with single women or women who don’t have a supportive family.”

ON MISSION AT HOME

“Christian Women’s Job Corps has been a wonderful way to reach women in the community with the gospel of Jesus Christ, with encouragement for their lives and with support,” Gambrell said. “Our mission field is right here.

“The national WMU has been such an encouragement to us. They help us with promotional materials, with training, with so many things, and our state WMU has been a great support as well,” she affirmed. “There are always needs in your community and we as people of the Lord are called to reach out to those around us.”

Diana Willis, one of the CWJC volunteer tutors committed to helping meet those needs, has 16 years of experience as a high school math teacher. Noting that many of the participants pursuing their GED needed help with math, she said, “I felt like I could make a little bit of a difference.

“I enjoy helping people learn something that they don’t know,” she added. “I feel like my spiritual gift is service and I feel like it’s a service to help someone improve their life and work toward their GED if they don’t have it. It’s just fulfilling to know that I’m helping somebody along that path.”

Citing CWJC of Rusk County’s practical impact in the lives of participants, Gambrell said she has seen many of the women go on to gain “a variety of jobs that make them feel like they’re women of worth.”

“It’s great to see them become someone that they didn’t think they could be,” she concluded. “It’s because somebody believed in them and somebody invested in their lives. That’s what Christian Women’s Job Corps is all about.”

By Trennis Henderson, WMU National Correspondents