Oti's Family

Oti is 38 years old. She lives and cares for her 7 youngest children, who are between 3-13 years old. Her husband died over 3 years ago, and she has been trying hard ever since to both take care of her kids and work to make money to provide for their basic needs.

Oti Serving Cake for a
 Birthday Celebration

Back2Back began working with Oti's family shortly after her husband died. At that time, none of her children were in school, and Oti was really struggling to provide for her family. Now her children are in school, and with the help of a tutor, are all getting straight A's. Two weeks ago, 5 of her kids were baptized. When Jeny, 13, was given her own Bible she immediately began reading it and making up tunes for singing the Psalms. Oti has visibly become more involved in helping her kids to grow and reach their dreams. We took the two oldest girls, Jeny and Marisol, to the beach this past Saturday along with some other teens that we work with and some teen volunteers so that they could get used to being around other kids their age (they're both behind in school and spend most of their time with younger kids). We played football, sang worship songs, and had snacks--it was very fun and so encouraging to see them laughing and making friends.

Oti's Kids Drawing Self-Portraits

I've been involved in working with Oti's family over the past few months by writing down the kids' life stories and creating individualized goals for each child. I'm also starting to do games and activities with them each month to help them better understand their feelings and how to cope with stress and hard things. This month we talked about anger. Among other games, we wrote down things that make us frustrated, upset, and angry and then threw wet paper towels at those things, which caused the words to drip away. It was fun to watch the kids get super into it, and I think they learned about good ways to express their anger.

I've loved watching these kids grow--hearing their hilarious jokes, singing Justin Bieber songs together, and having story time. God has great things in store for each one of them, and I feel so blessed to be a part of their stories.