Moving forward: How Charles turned a lifetime of setbacks into a family enterprise

Charles was six years old when he lost both of his parents. There was no inheritance waiting for him, no land, no savings, no one to walk him to his first day of school. He grew up in Luro village, Maridi County, raised by relatives who could offer him shelter but not opportunity. While other children learned to read, Charles learned to survive.
By the time he was a grown man with a wife, Roda, and seven children of his own three boys and four girls the old wound had calcified into a belief that the world simply was not built for people like him. 

“Some people are destined for setbacks,” he said to tell himself, “While others find opportunities.” He watched training and workshops come and go in Maridi, always assuming they were meant for someone else. For 52 years, that assumption held.
Then, through FARM STEW South Sudan and World Vision, Charles was invited to the Empowered Worldview (EWV) training. It was, by his own account, the very first workshop he had ever attended in his life.

Sitting in that training, Charles noticed something he had overlooked for five decades that the skills, land, and relationships around him weren't nothing. They were assets. He later admitted that before the training,
“I felt powerless and overwhelmed and had often found myself blaming God for his situation.” What the training gave him instead was a plan and, for the first time, the confidence to follow it.

The results came quickly. All seven of his children are now in school full-time, no longer a burden he carries alone but a goal he and Roda are actively funding together, 
“We earn South Sudanese Pounds (SSP) 150,000 from the farm and SSP 80,000 from my wife's own work,” Charles happily shared. 
Charles has resettled his home. He's preparing for his second farming season with plans for a teak plantation and orchards of mango, orange, and lemon trees.

He and Roda gave their new venture a name that says everything about the distance they travelled. MOTOMWA-MYAMBOKI which means “NEVER GIVE UP, MOVE FORWARD” in the Baka language. It's not just a business name; it's a family motto now, one that has pulled every member of the household into a shared push toward something better.

Today, Charles' fields tell the story in acres, two hectares of maize, one hectare of groundnuts, one hectare of bananas, half a hectare of cabbages, half a hectare of oranges and lemons a diversified spread that feeds his family first and pays the rest of the bills second. 
“The Empowered Worldview training gave me the capacity to establish, to plan, and to move forward,” Charles says now.

By Pr. Lam Duop Lam, Faith and Development Coordinator/ World Vision and FARM STEW South Sudan