WMU’s job skills ministry for women celebrates fifth year since original site opened in Alabama

In 1997, Alabama Christian Women’s Job Corps (CWJC) opened its first site in Birmingham. Since then, Alabamians have seen more than 10 sites open in the state and more than 200 graduates of the various programs developed for women. Women have gained self-confidence, the hope for a brighter future and the job skills for better employment since the program started. This year, CWJC celebrates its fifth birthday.
   
One life that has changed through the CWJC program in Marshall County is that of Melissa Motley. Motley dropped out of high school when she became pregnant with her first child. She married and then had two more children, but within a few years, Motley’s marriage dissolved. She and her husband filed for divorce.
   
“I just felt like nobody cared about me,” Motley says, but she pulled things together and received her GED. That is when an old friend suggested she visit the CWJC site in her area. “I needed some computer skills but didn’t know where to get them,” she says. “But I got more than just computer skills at CWJC,” she says. “I realized that I am more than nothing. God put me here for a reason, and I will be somebody someday by the grace of God.”
   
Motley says her time at the CWJC site in Marshall County helped her understand that she is totally accepted by Christ and gave her confidence in herself. She has now enrolled in Snead State Junior College and plans to transfer to Jacksonville State this fall. 
   
“Things have gotten easier since I’ve learned that I can look up and get my strength,” she says. “I’m going to finish school, and I’m going to be a nurse in four years.”
   
Motley’s story is all too real for hundreds of other women throughout Alabama. Debbie Snyder, church and community ministries director of Shelby Baptist Association, works with the CWJC site in her area. She says, “This is ministry evangelism at its best.”
   
Snyder partnered with the Shelby County Department of Human Resources to develop a program that works with women who are among the lowest level of poverty in Shelby County. The Central Alabama Skills Center also joined in the mix to help provide job training, job placement and GED classes.
   
“We didn’t reinvent the wheel with our program,” Snyder says. “We use the resources around us, and we all work together.”
   
In the last 10 months, the auto mechanic school has also become a partner by doing repair work on 19 automobiles that have been donated to the site.
   
“When women were given jobs, they didn’t even have enough money to go out and buy even the cheapest of cheap cars to give transportation to and from work,” Snyder says. “Several people have donated their cars, and women are able to hold down jobs because they have secure transportation.” Shelby County Baptist Association has committed to paying insurance for the first six months that the women have cars. After then, the new owner takes over the insurance payments.
   
“By placing these women in job training classes, helping them find jobs and then helping provide transportation, we’ve really been able to minister,” Debbie says.
   
The purpose of CWJC, a ministry of Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), is to provide a Christian context in which women in need are equipped for life and employment, and a missions context in which women help women. (Alabama WMU)