ELIZABETHTOWN — “This thing is getting ready to explode — it’s going to be big.”

Jennifer Carter spoke those words because she believes in the potential of what she’s doing. About 33 years ago, her niece, Lilly, was imprisoned after driving a getaway car for a robbery that turned into homicide. After she served her time, according to Carter, she “just didn’t know how to function outside of prison.”

Shortly after gaining her freedom, the chains in her mind led Lilly to take her own life.

That tragedy isn’t the only suffering Carter has faced, however. Seven years ago, her son was killed in a pedestrian accident two months shy of turning 21. Shortly after his death, Carter was at a regional WMU meeting and saw a book titled What Every Church Member Should Know About Poverty.

“I just picked it up on a whim,” she recalled. “I had no idea how God would use it, but He knew long before I did what He was calling me to do.”

She put the book aside. About five years ago, she reached out to the Christian Women’s Job Corps, an arm of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. CWJC focuses on helping downtrodden women develop work and coping skills by providing a Christian context in which women, led by other women, move from dependency to self-sufficiency.

“Our motto is ‘Offering a hand up, not a handout’,” Carter explained. “CWJC was originally established as a way to help women out of poverty, but poverty can be many things. It can be emotional poverty, financial poverty, low self-esteem — any number of things.

“A lot of women — a lot — have been kept down all their lives and told they can’t do anything or they’re not worth anything. Those are the women we want to help. We want to show them how to break the cycle they’re in and equip them with whatever they need to feel empowered and self-sufficient.”

That empowerment may come through something like resumé writing, computer skills, or basic telephone etiquette, or it may be proper work attire, literacy, parenting skills, or money management.

The skills aren’t necessarily the end goal, though. Women who participate in the program are paired with a mentor with whom they meet weekly for Bible study.

“Women who participate in the program don’t have to be Christians, but it is our hope that women will travel the road to self-sufficiency with Jesus Christ,” Carter commented.

As part of the training required by the Baptist State Convention, Carter had to read that very book she picked up in the wake of her son’s death.

“I wish every Christian would read it,” she said. “It’s an eye-opening book. People who have never lived in poverty — which the majority of Christians ministering to the poor haven’t — have no idea how poor people think. If we want women to become independent, we have to begin by addressing their mindset, their attitudes and patterns of thinking.”

Carter said that while she’s been preparing for this ministry over the past five years, her own mindset has changed.

“God has been tempering me for five years. I’m glad I didn’t start five years ago when I wanted to, because His ministry has to be done in His time and in His way,” Carter said. “The time is right now, and I just feel this is going to take off. There’s a huge need for it in Bladen County.”

The need is so great, in fact, that, according to Carter, though a similar, albeit secular, program exists funded by the government, the very people that work there have been asking for a faith-based program in Bladen County.

With God’s leading her to the ministry intersecting with both so great a need and her own experience seeing how a ministry could have helped someone like Lilly, Carter is confident of the program’s future success. The CWJC of Bladen County is on the verge of opening — Carter is hoping for May — it just needs two things: people and resources. Below is a list of items needed by the ministry.

— Volunteer mentors. CWJC of Bladen County needs at least two women willing to mentor participants. Mentors will be trained, and should be Christian women 18 or older willing to invest in one trainee at a time.

— Financial donations

— A white board

— Computers

— Bibles

— Journals

— School supplies

— Baby needs, especially diapers

“I believe if something like CWJC had existed for Lilly, she would still be here,” said Carter. “I don’t want any woman in Bladen County to feel that desperate. They can succeed and become the women God intended for them to be.”

For additional information on the CWJC of Bladen County, call 910-734-9231.

Chrysta Carroll can be reached by calling 910-862-4163.

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By Chrysta Carroll

ccarroll@civitasmedia.com