How do you change a life for the better?

You share God’s Word with them and love them as He loves them! You help those in need with skills and education and empower them to proudly improve their own life!

We are approaching service and missions differently!

Serving and coming along side to empower with respect, friendship, and compassion.

Recognizing potentials, meeting needs and teaching skills.

Changing lives, showing love and sharing God’s Word

Join us and make a difference!

Changing Lives by loving, serving and empowering those in need with skills to pursue the life they want!

We do not come in with a set program! We listen to the needs and wants of those we are serving and help them accomplish the goals they choose! We find this approach builds self- reliance, pride and has a greater success rate!  LTP’s successful empowerment practices include: partnering to love and empower those in need and providing education, training, support for small business start-up and long term success.  We build relationships and share the love of Christ with those in unreached villages. We build Christian schools and give girls and women a safe and loving place to live and learn. We give God the glory and are proud to have been awarded a number of prestigious awards and recognitions for our efforts!  We hope our efforts demonstrate and teach a better way to do service where the needs of those being served are considered first and foremost. 

Poverty in Sub-Saharan African Countries

Over half of the people working in sub-Saharan African countries earn less than $1.25/day (the extreme poverty line) and women represent about 70 % of the world’s poor and earn 23% less on average than men.  At least 30% of women and girls in these countries are severely undernourished; half have had cholera or other water-born illnesses; 6% to 30% of women die during pregnancy/childbirth depending on what country they live in and their lack of access to medical care, and fewer than one-fifth of women are given access to education. 

  Together, with the help of people like you we are changing communities, giving dignity and making a better future for generations to come.  Lighting the Path is approaching poverty differently by including empowerment.  Meeting the needs of food, water, medical care, shelter and education are the necessary starting points. We then include empowerment with education, skills, small business training and supplies to start a small enterprise and earn an income.  Every person wants to feel valuable and competent and, if given a chance, will work hard to have a good life.  Our vision is to empower people to provide for themselves and their family and to see them flourish and live out their full, God-given potential. To accomplish this vision, we engage and challenge societal norms. We work to alleviate suffering through action oriented work while respecting cultural and personal differences, along with caring for physical and emotional needs.

We have directly empowered over 1025 women with skills to start a small enterprise and the knowledge to train others to do the same.  The “ripple effect” has been huge and we are seeing these women take their skills and use them to help their family thrive and teach others how to do the same.

We have formed and empowered over 35 women’s associations to work as a combined team of different strengths to make a product and  run a sustainable enterprise empowering hundreds of women.  We are seeing our efforts to empower women to train and in turn empower others be successful,  which is one of  our main goals!

In our newest Giving Hope Project, we have taught over 158 refugee women in our city to sew and make products to start their own small business or gain employment.

The Girls for Girls project provides washable and reusable feminine hygiene kits to girls who have no supplies to deal with her monthly menstrual cycle.  We have sent over 1850 hygiene kits to schools, clinics and organizations in Zimbabwe, the Congo, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Cameroon and Ghana.  We are now offering in country sewing training to manufacture the pads directly in communities and schools.

We have built and opened a residential technical school for young women which allows them to live in a safe environment and learn skills to run a successful and sustainable small business that will allow them to take care of themselves and have a brighter future.  Our classes have been amazingly successful and we have already expanded our enrollment with the completion of a dormitory building.