How We Got Started:
In 2006, Tracy and Becky Spencer took their first trip to AIDS-ravaged eSwatini with their ten-year old daughter Anna at their side. Their hearts were moved by the countless children who needed care. They founded Grand Staff Ministries and started a sponsorship program designed to provide tuition, a uniform, shoes, and school fees for school-aged children.
Over 200 children have gone through that program, some of whom have completed college, university, or skills training. We are grateful for the nurses, electricians, mechanics, and bakers who have completed degrees. And we are equally excited about the upcoming social workers, an attorney, a doctor, a chemical engineer, and an agricultural and biosystems engineer, all of whom are currently studying to see their dreams come true.
Still, as good as the sponsorship program is, it only goes so far. Many Swazi children need more, including a place to live and be safe from abuse and human trafficking. They need help with homework. Doctor visits. Medication. Regular meals. Shelter. The love of caring house-parents. A family. They need Shepherd’s Care Homes. Be sure to read how Angel’s story led us to rescue her—and many other girls with equally desperate situations.
These children–just like Angel–need Shepherd’s Care Homes.
Angel was 7 years old in 2008 when Tracy and Becky met her. She lived with her gogo (grandmother) because her father was deceased and her mother had abandoned her. Angel thrived in our sponsorship program. But when her gogo died, her mother reluctantly moved back since Angel had nowhere else to go.
Unfortunately, Angel’s mother made it clear she didn’t want her girl. She began locking Angel out of their house when Angel was only a third grader. In the poor squatter’s camp across from the dump, Angel suffered much abuse during long nights unsupervised and neglected. When Becky finally realized what was happening, she searched for a place Angel could go to be safe. But the children in need of care far outnumber available spaces. Over 200,000 children have no parents, and countless more are neglected, abused, and abandoned.
In 2014, when the Grand Staff Ministries Board of Directors realized there simply wasn’t a home for Angel to go to, they decided to build her one. They broke ground in July of 2016 and opened the first Shepherd’s Care Home in April of 2017. (Note: this would be a great spot for the picture of her with arms extended on move in day.)
Although Angel was finally safe and well-cared for in a family environment, it wasn’t all smooth-sailing. She was 17 years old by then and all the years of rejection and abandonment created walls that kept the right kind of family love from breaking through. She ended up repeatedly running away from Shepherd’s Care. Finally the police and social workers in her case gently suggested that her behaviors would influence the younger children, so we should allow her to go.
This is one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. We pray that Angel will realize how the Lord is still pursuing her to receive His love and she’ll be drawn to Him for healing and wholeness.
Meanwhile, we pray no other child will have to wait while we raise funds. By God’s grace, we’ve rescued thirty girls from desperate situations who’ve become part of the Shepherd’s Care family.
Read about some of their journeys in Becky’s award-winning book, A Bruised Reed: Memoirs of African Orphans and Their Rescuers. You can order this first book in the Worth Fighting For Series on Amazon or find a signed copy of the book at Grand Staff Thrift Boutique.
Book 2 in the Worth Fighting For Series is also now available at the boutique and on Amazon.
When God Comes Down Like Rain: Overcoming Obstacles to Faith