Pockets of Change | Numbers from Justin Keitch on Vimeo.

I lust after the American dream. I want the house. I want the dog and the backyard and the barbecue parties and the hot tub. I want the crafts room and the rec room. I want the kitchen with the double-wide fridge and ice dispenser. I want the toaster on the counter, the nice clothes in the closet and the recreational gear stored neatly in the garage.

We traveled around the world, saw the poverty and the despair, met the people who give up the little they have to serve the Lord. So how is it possible that I come home and I still long for a life the Lord has not blessed me with right now?

I look at house listings online and want to cry. We don’t even know what our future will hold, there is nothing certain about life beyond Pockets of Change. I know this is a period in my life. This is the place, the time, the life God has set before me and most of the time I praise Him for it. But today, I just want to go back to an easy life of earning money and spending as I wish. Today, I feel more human, more fallible, more caught up in the world than in the Spirit.

I guess that’s the reality of being human. Sometimes we soar, sometimes we sink. But through it all, God’s promises are true. God’s love for me is real. And God’s desire for me is to be in relationship with Him, not with the world. So today, I will set aside my own desires and seek His. I will put my requests before Him and leave them there. Because God is God, and I am not. And His will is perfect for me, even on the days I don’t feel it.

I will seek wisdom instead of wealth. I will seek integrity instead of financial interest. I will seek justice instead of jewels.

For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for He guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.

- Provers 2:6-8

We drove past a woman washing her clothes in the stream, next to a colossal billboard advertising a washer / dryer combo. It read: ‘Who said washing clothes is hard work’?

While the woman and the advertisement were directly next to each other, the two could not have been further apart. It was such a dichotomy to see an ad that would not stand out in North America next to a scene that does not stand out in Africa. But placed together, the two images were worlds apart.

She has no more chance of ever owning a modern-day appliance than I have of winning the Ms. World pageant. Maybe that didn’t bother her. Maybe it bothered me because even after all this travel I still consider things like a washing machine more of a right than a luxury. And that’s after washing a lot of underwear and socks in bathroom sinks. What I consider my rights versus luxuries are so separated from what that woman would consider a right or a luxury.

Now that we’re back and in our normal lives here in Canada, there are things that I used to consider my rights that really stand out to me now as overwhelming luxuries. It’s tough to separate what I experienced in our travels with what I see back in Canada. I feel different: I look at the world differently, I look at my finances differently, I look at my heart differently. Yet I live in the same world I did before. The struggle now is what to do now with the changes that took place in me.

It’s a good reason that everyone should be involved in missions. You change, whether that’s what you’re after or not.

Considering that stringing words into captivating sentences that turn into stories is the reason that I am even in this place, this concerns me.

What I find myself stumped in writing about is a story of two teachers working in the middle of nowhere in a place called Seje. It’s a small community in Kenya, little more than an array of huts about five kilometres from a village that at least has a few corner stores.

The only way to find the school in which they work is to follow a long thin ribbon of red dirt that someone had the sense of humour to call a road. It bumps and winds and has potholes so big I was concerned we would be abandoning the car and walking with our field partner Edgar to find it.

We arrived safely, to a dusty patch of land with two buildings. Inside the mud walls of the first room, children sing a welcome to their rare visitors from outside the community. Bright sunlight streamed into the windows, providing the only light. Unlike most Kenyan schools, only some of the kids here wear uniforms, and they are tattered and threadbare.

The circumstances these students find themselves in are awful. It is a hot and dusty place. Most of the children are orphans, living wherever they can find a sympathetic hand or with old grandparents in need of assistance themselves.

The Seje school, with somewhere between 90 and 160 students depending on the day, can hardly be described as a school. While it has some of the building blocks of a school – desks and a chalkboard notably – there is little else to distinguish these two mud buildings as a place of learning.

For starters, only one of the buildings is even a school building. The other is the local church, converted into a makeshift classroom on weekdays.

Inside there are very few books. In fact, the grade three class has no books for their level. The grade 2-3 teacher only has one master book for grade 3, and that book is on loan from another school.

While the story of the children is sad, it was listening to the teachers share that really broke my heart. Lillian and Peter teach kindergarten to grade 4, alternating classrooms for different subjects.

Lillian is from Seje, and has three of her own children. Peter bikes to work each day from a community called Siaya, more than 15 kilometres away.

The two teachers work very hard, sacrificing more than you could imagine to give these kids a chance at a future. Seje school is not registered and therefore gets no assistance from the government. And there are no churches or communities supporting this school, which means that Lillian and Peter are volunteers. They get absolutely no money for teaching.

Yet every day, Monday to Friday, they come and teach. Why, I ask, do they not go and work somewhere and make a living? Lillian answers because if they do not teach these kids, no one will. And they can’t give up on them or there will be no future for the kids of Seje.

There was hope for this village once. A church signed on to help. A feeding program was started for the school kids. Money was sent for salaries, for school supplies, for medicine. A water tank was installed so when it rained there would be water.

But as things sometimes go, it didn’t work out and the church stopped supporting the school. The feeding program ended, the money stopped coming. The water tank sits as a cruel reminder, taunting the teachers as there is no rain and hasn’t been for a long time.

I ask Lillian where she gets her water for drinking.

“There is none,” she replies. “I just go thirsty.”

She shares with me that with no money, she cannot even feed her children and herself save for the kindness of others. And the parents and guardians in this community are no better off than she is. She is sometimes so weak, she can barely stand in front of the classroom and teach.

I carry two or three extra pens with me at all times in case one runs out while I’m interviewing. As I sat on a worn chair under the shade of a small tree interviewing Peter and Lillian, they mentioned in passing that they do not even have pens to write with and grade the students’ work. Not that it matters much of the time, most of the children have no exercise book. Guardians do not even have money for thin, cheap exercise books. They cost mere pennies but even that is too much money.

I gathered all the pens I could find and gave them to the teachers. Such a small gesture, so ridiculous in its miniscule nature, meant so much to them. Can you imagine doing your job without something as simple as a pen?

The pathetic state of the school continues. Since the school is not registered, it gets no assistance from the government in any way. The school needs major construction in order for the government to register it. Yet the government won’t supply the funding for construction because the school is not registered as official. It’s one of those chicken and egg things. And there is no hope of the community banding together for funding. There is no work in Seje, no rain for the farmers, and no hope of the citizens in this community to ever get out of their own poverty enough to help others.

The supply room has empty bottles of medicine, left over from the days of sponsorship by the church. If children are injured at school, there is literally nothing Peter and Lillian can do for them. No antiseptics, no cleansers, not even a bandaid. Oh, and there’s giant biting ants, I discovered by setting up my pinky toe for bait.

Even the flagpole which once helped to distinguish the school as something legitimate has been eaten by termites. The flag now sits folded inside a cupboard, next to the room where older local boys sleep at night with a spear to protect what little material goods the school has from thieves.

I could go on. But you get the picture. It’s sad. Really sad. And unlike most of my blog posts where there’s a happy little ending, this one has none. We left the school having had no means to help them ourselves save for a couple pens. And as I sit on a comfy bed having just eaten a deliciously filling dinner, I think of Peter and Lillian probably going to bed hungry tonight. I think of Peter biking the long and extremely difficult road to school. I think of Lillian hearing her children moan from the hunger pangs. I think of the random school child who surely will hurt herself playing in the dirt and the teachers having nothing to give her for the pain. I think of the cruel joke played on the school, with a large water tank sitting in the middle and not a drop of water in sight. And I think of how much just a little money would help these people, or one church to step up and commit to helping.

I’m sorry there’s no happy ending yet to this story. But that’s life. I leave you with one thing Peter said to us during our interview. He said there’s a verse in Proverbs that reads if a man wants to eat, he must work. Then he laughed at the irony when he said he and Lillian work very hard, yet they do not eat. That’s not right, is it?

Wilfreda’s weathered face reveals an old woman who has suffered hardship. To look at her arms, you can trace the bones within. Her clothes are tattered and threadbare.

Wilfreda lives in a small mud hut with a thatched roof. She and her aged husband have no means of making money. We visited Wilfreda at her home because she had been blessed with a male and a female goat through a project facilitated by Hungry for Life and our good friend Edgar.

We saw the goats first, as our visit was unannounced and Wilfreda was not home. As we talked to our guide Pastor Michael about the project, Wilfreda came running up the dirt path to greet us.

She happily shook our hands and told us through Pastor Michael’s translation what a joy it was to meet us and how excited she was about the upcoming birth of her goat. She talked of the blessing these goats will be when she can start to sell the offspring at the market to make a bit of money.

We had a little chat and headed on our way as we had much to see and a long ways to walk on this particular day. And I thought that was the end of my story about Wilfreda. But then we went to Pastor Michael’s church on Sunday.

The mud walled and tin roofed church was full of mostly widows and orphans. Some had probably not had anything to eat for breakfast; three meals a day is unheard of in Boro.

Pastor Michael’s flock is a very poor one. While they cannot bring much to offer, what they do bring is joy. Wilfreda and the others arrived at the church with huge smiles, dressed in their Sunday best.

They came to worship, and it was a sweet sound. Out of the congregation, one lone woman would begin to sing praise to God. The rest would repeat after her, moving and clapping their worship to Christ. As one song ended, another woman would begin a new song, and so it went for song after song.

It was beautiful. There was such a presence of God in this place, and the humble surroundings made it all the more evident that God seeks after our hearts alone. I watched as Wilfreda sang out to her Saviour, giving Him her praise. I am sure God smiled down on his followers in the Boro church that day.

The Hillside team’s pastor, Durwin, gave the message, and then it came time for the offering. A large basket was placed on a table at the front, and quickly after people began to drop in their offerings. As a team, we had decided to each give about 100 shillings each, a lot for these people but under $2 for us. I was standing right by the basket, and as I watched, Wilfreda and most of the others in the church came forward. They dropped in change – 5, 10, maybe 20 shillings at the most – releasing their grip and dropping their meagre offerings into the hand woven basket with a clink.

As I watched, I began to weep. I couldn’t help it.

We gave so little. These people gave a tenth of what we did, yet they gave so much more.What we gave was nothing in comparison to what they gave. How can I describe the sacrifice these people gave, their precious offering?

It was so real to me, after seeing Wilfreda in her home and witnessing the poverty she came from. To see her and others that come from similar living situations give their offerings to Christ was humbling. No sacrifice I have made for God’s glory comes close to the 10 shillings Wilfreda gave that day.

Here is a newsletter we sent out to supporters. If you did not receive this and would like to be on our mailing list, please contact us through the contact form on the website or email Justin@pocketsofchange.org

Time sure is flying here in the Ukraine. We’ve been here a week already in Nikopol and it’s hard to believe how quickly the time has gone. Justin and I have heard many stories, so many it gets overwhelming. I have filled an entire notebook already in just one week, and we still have another full week here before we leave for Uganda.

We have seen great need here. We have also seen the power of Christ at work in people’s lives. Those that have nothing praise God for giving them breath and life even though they have very little else. Most have had a lifetime of hardship yet their faith is so much stronger than mine.

One thing that has really stood out to me is the ravaging effects of alcohol here; it is rampant. It’s clear Satan has a hold on many Ukrainians through this destructive substance and their families are hurt because of it. We met a woman yesterday who exemplifies this problem. Her name is Luba. Her husband drinks. And she hates it. The sadness in her eyes when she told us that said more than her words. A pool of tears welled up in her eyes as she shared about her husband. Then she told us her son went off to war, and when he came home he had mental problems and started to drink too.

“I can’t express what a suffering it is,” she voiced about her pain.
Yet Luba gets up every day determined to live as Christ would have her live. God reached out to her and saved her and she lives each day with a joy that can only come from Christ, not from her life circumstances.

For Justin, what has stood out has been how similar the Ukraine at first glance looks to Canada. When you’re driving through the streets of Nikopol and out into the countryside, it looks so similar to back home. Visible evidence like signs in another language and alphabet never allow us to pretend for too long, but the trees, the landscape and comforts of the guest home sure make it feel like home.

But, what Justin has observed, is that the more we talk to people and get to know their stories, the more foreign this country has become. What he read in history books in school is now more real than ever. These people we are meeting have lived through communism, they lived through Stalin’s regime and the concentration camps and the starvation and the corruption. It’s no longer just words in a text book; it’s real people with real experiences.

We would like to encourage those that would like to, to drop us a note once in awhile. Justin and I both are feeling out of the loop from life in Canada and sometimes feel like we’re floating in the ocean without a tether to home.

We eagerly await a chance each day to see if the internet is working and check our mail only to find out there are no messages for us. Certainly we don’t need to hear from everyone all the time, but if you are praying for us, or if you have a cool verse to share or something, we would love to get an email.

Justin and I know that we could not do this project without the support from back home. And we know that there are people praying for us as we have been protected, healthy and gathering the stories of life change we came to gather. Thank you for your prayers, for your concern, and for your friendship. We value each one of you and appreciate your support.

There’s an old familiar hymn I used to sing growing up: ‘Count your many blessings every doubt will fly,’ and the familiar chorus rings out, ‘Count your blessings, count them one by one / And it will surprise you what the Lord has done’.

I have felt spiritually discouraged lately. Feeling like what I’m doing has no Kingdom value, like I’m just taking up space and writing words and none of it is going to make a difference. I know these thoughts come from the evil one who wants to take us down, defeat us and claim victory in this battle. But knowing in my head these thoughts are not from my King and keeping it from affecting my heart are two different things.

So I spent some time this morning just reflecting on the blessings in the Pockets of Change project these last few months. It is not by our strength or smarts this project will be accomplished or be of Kingdom value. It is through Christ alone. When people ask how we’re doing this, I want to always point them to my King. Because He blesses His people and enables them to do His calling. We’re just thankful He chose us to be a part of it.

We’ve been on the road three of the last six months, between our Canada and abroad travels. We’ve enjoyed the travels and have enjoyed the time in Chilliwack as well. It’s been a good experience thus far and we’re now looking to prepare for our final leg of travel.

Going way back to June, we arrived back from our South America travels at the beginning of the month. After in-depth debriefing and catching up on sleep, we spent a couple weeks sorting through interviews and photos and preparing ourselves for the Mexico trip in July. We also spent a fun-filled week in Cranbrook to attend my 10 year grad reunion and catch up with old friends.

The first two weeks of July were spent in Mexico with a team from Coquitlam Alliance Church. That was an extraordinary trip; we saw great need and great compassion. I sometimes still fall asleep at night thinking about the Tarahamarans and what the missionaries there are doing to help, and feel blessed we got to see and be a part of that ministry if only for a few short days.

Friends of a friend of ours heard we were looking for a place to stay for the two months we were back in Chilliwack between Mexico and our Fall travels. The couple offered to let us stay in their rental apartment for almost no cost at all to us for the time we were back in Canada. This has been a huge answer to prayer for us! From March to mid-July we had been living with other people and we found that four and a half months was a long stretch to not just be together in our own home.

When we arrived back from Mexico, this generous Christian couple had the keys waiting for us. And when we got to the apartment, Corrina (our close working partner at HFL for Pockets of Change) had given us everything needed to settle in: pots and pans, towels and a mattress, dish soap and even some KD – our favourite meal! It was an amazing blessing for us and we have been grateful to stay in this wonderful apartment for the last month and a half.

We also had another Godsend in the form of a brand new storage facility to put all our worldly belongings. We had originally stored them in an old dairy barn. We were grateful for the space and prayed over protection for our stuff as we couldn’t get storage insurance. But the family that opened their storage space to us built a brand new barn complete with locking bay doors and an alarm system and invited us to move everything over. Wow, what a blessing that was!

After settling into our apartment, we spent a week on the island with my family and came back to Chilliwack refreshed and ready to jump in. For the last month and a half I have been sorting through interviews and writing recaps as well as getting into story writing for the actual book.  It’s been a good exercise in discipline for me as I work through the more than 100 interviews conducted so far in this project.

Meanwhile, Justin has jumped off the deep end of the publishing pool, trying to assess what the best route will be for getting the book printed. We have again been blessed in this area. The HFL office is located in the same office building as the Blessings Christian Marketplace head office. One of their employees took a publishing program and has helped us greatly in getting started down this route. She has provided invaluable tips and pointed us in the possible directions we can go.

Outside of the Pockets of Change project, we have been able to do some hiking, spend time with our near and dear friends and were very blessed to be in the country for the birth of our friend’s second child – a moment we would not have wanted to miss!

And now, unbelievably, we need to start preparing for the next leg of our journey. The time has gone by in a blink of an eye and I have to look at my computer clock about two times a day to remind myself it is indeed the end of August. We leave for the Ukraine the third week of September and from there head to Uganda, Kenya and lastly Sri Lanka.

I felt remiss in not sharing all that God has done for us as we do this Pockets of Change project. We have trusted Him to provide for us as we live on no steady income and yet I guess I never pictured what that would look like. To have every need met above and beyond has been faith building for us. And to count our blessings truly does encourage me spiritually. I am struggling still and ask for prayer as we spiritually prepare for our next travel leg. But at the same time as we struggle, we praise God for all He has done to take care of us through this phase of our lives. As another old familiar hymn puts it so aptly: ‘Praise God, from whom ALL blessings flow’!

In the grocery store line-up, I see celebrity magazine covers splashed with news from the icons this world chooses to follow. But those leaders let people down. You don’t have to watch much TV or stand in grocery store line-ups to know that Jon and Kate are no longer plus eight. The perfect family splits up, now who do you follow when it comes to marriage and kids?

Then there’s the political leaders. I think of Barrack Obama. It was like the second coming of Christ when he was elected; people followed him like lambs, vowing everything would change for the better. The world would be a rosy place with Obama in charge. Now the realities of his role have hit and we find he is not the knight in shining armour many had trusted he would be.

We follow the footsteps of these leaders, in the hope that the lives they live and the decisions they make will lead to a better tomorrow. And we are let down. Even in Christian circles this happens, for we’re all susceptible to the sins of this world.

Yet there are leaders worth following in this world, if you look in the right place. Look, for example, in Mexico and to Pastor Tomas. I know I’ve mentioned Pastor Tomas in a couple posts from Mexico. But mentioning is not what I want to do. I want you to know him; I want you to feel as if you have sat down and listened to him speak because I’m sure God has given him a gift of vision that is passed along through his words.

He is a man of strength, a man of vision, and a man of action. He has such passion for the people of the Copper Canyon, the unreached and hard-to-reach people of Mexico’s deep valley areas. He was called to the people of the Copper Canyon many years ago, after hearing of the great need that existed there. And he has not looked back since.

Sitting in the the teacher’s humble room at the orphanage in Guacaivo, Pastor Tomas took the time to share with me this passion he has for the lost people in this stunningly beautiful place.

“Our principal goal is that everybody know Jesus, the Saviour,” he says with a quiet and heartfelt voice. His weathered face reveals the years of trekking through the elements to reach the far-flung destinations, and his attire is simple and practical – a cowboy pastor in the heart of Mexico.

He works to accomplish that goal by providing for basic necessities of food and clothing. The people come to the monthly distributions and Pastor Tomas gets the opportunity to meet with them face to face. He shares the love of Christ and in return they listen and walk away with bags of food and clothing.

He not only ministers to the Tarahamarans and Pima, and to his church members in Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas. He ministers to the North American teams that come to help as well. It was humbling to hear him give thanks to the Coquitlam team we were in Mexico with, when he does so much and by comparison we do so little. But he is not a man of idle words, he clearly meant it when he told them how grateful he was for all they do in coming to Mexico, in sharing the story in the church back home, and in raising much-needed funds for projects.

Pastor Tomas moved my heart. He gave me a sense of what Christ did for the world, sacrificing of himself for a dying people. ‘Pastor’, as he is affectionately called by his team, saves people from death by starvation and death without salvation. He showed me that one person can make a difference.

Pastor Tomas said something to the team that really stuck out to me. He said that when God called him, he had no worldly possessions, no money, no resources but gave to God what he had: his body and his passion. And still today he wants to continue his journey with passion. ”I want to live; not to think of the cost, but to go to those places that have more needs,” he said. “This doesn’t come automatically. You have to walk, to stumble, to feel you’re sometimes not able to go on and then you can see God there . . . If I didn’t see God walking in front of me, I wouldn’t go.”

Pastor Tomas is a man worth following, because he follows in God’s footsteps.

From my experience, there are two categories of runs: sprints and marathons. OK, technically a marathon is a set race of 42 km. But in my mind, there are the short races and the long hauls. And you run the races very differently depending on the length.

Sprints are all-out, pump the legs and arms as fast as you can, pound the feet against the track, end goal in sight type of deals. You basically go like stink until you reach the finish.

Marathon length races are run much differently. They require persistence and an ability to push through a more aching pain as you consistently pound the pavement. Mentally your focus needs to be on the end goal though you cannot see it for miles in between you and the finish line. Pacing is important, and having a strong support team providing water, food, encouragement and arms to fall into at the end of the race are crucial.

Our entire Mexico trip we were with a team from Coquitlam Alliance Church (CAC) and as we worked with them, I really saw the difference between a sprint and a marathon when it comes to a short term trip. The people on this trip worked like stink, hiking and digging and dry-walling and pipe laying and concrete making and running VBS and encouraging and praying and driving – lots of driving – for two weeks straight.

And we pretty much followed along the team schedule set up for the CAC group. For 14 of the 15 days we ran the rapid pace that is a short term missions sprint: limited time, much to do, many places to get to in such a short time that every hour counts.

And what a team CAC was to race with, sprint style. They were probably all tired of work projects by the time we had hiked out of the Copper Canyon and got to the base camp in Rio Chico. Yet everyone was out there, smiles on, shovels in hand, ready to get brand new scratches, blisters, aching muscles and then to look back at the end of the day and know they did a job well done. It’s amazing to watch and it was great to be a part of that experience.

But now that sprint is over. The CAC team members are back home, blisters healed, burnt skin pealed off, photos downloaded and travel items put back in closets and drawers. It makes it all the more obvious to me now in comparison that Justin and I are running a marathon, not a sprint as we see others finish the race they set out to do and we are not even halfway done ours.

I remember that when I ran, there was almost always a point where I had to mentally remind myself of why I was in the race. I would glance around me to see other racers plugging along. I would take in the scenery, feel the ground and my shoes connect with each step, listen to my breath and just take the time to realize that my body could, after all, complete the remainder of the race.

We just spent a week away from all things Pockets of Change related. It felt good to take that moment in time to look at the scenery, feel the grass under my feet, listen to my heart and realize that I could, after all, complete the remainder of this race, this project, set out before us.

Am I tired? Yes. Do I long for the finish line? Yes. But I am enjoying the course immensely. There have been many interesting people along the route, many God-breathed moments like a cool breeze out on hot pavement, and many assurances that the race is nothing to hard in light of God’s glory and grace.

Pray that we can run this race with strength and endurance, and finish strong whenever that finish line may be.

Eriberto walked for hours to meet with us. We don’t know how long it took him; time is not really a relevant detail to the highland Quechewa people. Neither is distance. What is important is community. And we got to see first-hand in Peru how the organization ATEK is helping communities to build and grow and become strong.

Standing in a field by the elementary school, Eriberto wears a Stetson-style black hat with a strip of brown leather stretched around the band. His blue checkered shirt is done up neatly underneath his bright red jacket. It’s fairly cool in the morning at 11,000 feet. We’re higher than Machu Picchu right now, surrounded on all sides by green mountains.

Eriberto was a leader in his church, and helped minister to another nine churches in other communities. The church leaders got together about five or six years ago, acknowledging that they needed proper training to help lead their congregations. None of the leaders of these churches had ever had formal training, and financially they could simply not afford to go to school. It was “impossible,” Eriberto shares.

That’s when Eriberto heard about ATEK, a Quechewa-run ministry that works with Quechewa communities to train leaders. Leaders who can teach, who can preach, who can minister to husbands and wives and children. Training that is simply not accessible to these remote communities otherwise.

ATEK came in to Corribumba and helped Eriberto’s community. In the last five years, Eriberto has seen enormous change in his community of Corribumba and in the other nine churches in his network.

In his town of Corribumba, ATEK-trained teachers are now leading marriage counseling, literacy training and alcohol education as well as pastoral teaching. He has seen his church strengthened where before it seemed ready to die. It grew the faith of the Christians in his community, and he says they are now aware of their responsibilities as Christians.

But more than that, Eriberto has seen change in his own life. He and his wife took ATEK’s marriage counselling. The sessions opened his eyes to what a marriage could be, such as praying together and making decisions as a couple, something they never did before. Even though he was a minister and was teaching and was baptizing, he never fully understood what marriage was about. Now it makes it more meaningful when he helps to counsel other couples, as he now does in various communities including the village of Perrca, where we were staying when he made his trek to share with us what God is doing.

Summing it up, Eriberto says this about the training he and his community received through ATEK.

“It’s a blessing from God. ATEK is like a medicine for the problems in our villages.”