Meet Abalo Joyce, who handmakes jewelry through Life Beads

Throughout Abalo Joyce’s life, she has experienced how God is able. He is able to save her from her sins and give her eternal life. He is able to provide for her needs and her children’s needs. He is able to love her unconditionally. Since committing her life to following Christ, she has been motivated to share Jesus with others, He “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,” (Eph. 3:20). Looking back, Joyce has seen God’s hand in her life, even during the rebel war that plagued her community.

At the age of nine, the war in Northern Uganda put a halt to Joyce’s schooling. She was forced to stop attending after reaching Primary 4, and she and her family focused solely on hiding for survival.

Joyce was born in Omel, Uganda, in January 1975, and her childhood memories are filled with the terror of Joseph Kony’s rebel soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Saying life was not easy is an oversimplification.

She was attacked twice by the LRA rebels. During one of these attacks, a rebel soldier speared her leg and left her bleeding on the ground while other soldiers set fire to her family’s home. She was only 16 years old.

By God’s grace, they did not abduct her. Joyce had no access to a doctor, hospital, or medical facility of any kind, so her mother helped her care for the thigh wound using boiled water to clean it.

After this, Joyce and her family (her parents, three sisters, and five brothers) left their village and sought shelter in the nearby town of Gulu for several years. The rebels followed and frequently attacked the outskirts of the town. 

Through a translator, Joyce said, “You cannot sleep at your home. You either hide in the bush, or everyone must be gathered at the same place in the IDP camp (Internally Displaced Person’s camp established by the Ugandan government to protect civilians).

Joyce thought one way she could protect herself from the rebels was by getting married, so she married a man and gave birth to a son. Shortly afterwards, her husband passed away and Joyce remarried. While building a family, they continued to hide from the rebels until 2006 when the LRA was forced to leave the country.

When Joyce and her family finally returned to her home village, her husband started drinking alcohol and became violent, so they eventually separated. Joyce did not know Jesus at this time. Struggling to provide for her six children – Denis, Kenneth, Vicky, Sunday, Brian, and Morris – she boiled alcohol to sell. This helped her buy clothes and food for her children.

“I thank God now that I heard the Word of God spoken from those people who shared the gospel door to door,” Joyce said.

These evangelists came to visit her and told her more about the Lord. Joyce believed, repented, and learned to pray. She asked the Lord to provide for her family.

In 2013, God’s grace brought Joyce to Abaana’s Hope, and by 2015, she was accepted into the Women’s Refuge Center (WRC) program, which was designed to care for widows and women who’ve been abandoned through biblical discipleship and counseling. The WRC provided housing for women and their children, gave vocational training in animal husbandry, and taught responsible money-management skills. During the two years Joyce was in the program, she was able to save enough money to purchase her own home on two acres of land in 2017. The ministry also found sponsors for her children through the Child Development Program (CDP). Her son, Kenneth, was the first child in the CDP.

“I asked God to answer my prayer to provide money for paying my children at school. God did that. God opened for me the door to buy my land also. God did that,” Joyce said. “There are many more examples that would be too much to say.”

Joyce joined Living Stones Community Church where she continues to hear the Word of God preached, and she attended a weekly Bible study through the WRC where she grew in her faith.

In 2017, she joined the Life Beads ministry where she still serves today, handmaking jewelry beads from paper and leading weekly devotions. She’s also joined the Women’s Discipleship Outreach Group where she and a group of women visit other women in the community who are struggling with different circumstances. They provide comfort and the hope of the gospel.

In addition to working in the Life Beads room, Joyce is a businesswoman. Through a generous foundation grant in 2025, the 35 Life Beads women were given training and startup funds to kickstart their own microbusiness to help bring in addition income for their families. With the training and funds Joyce was given, she invested in shoes and eucalyptus trees. 

She purchases shoes in bulk from Gulu and resells them in the villages surrounding Abaana’s Hope. In these smaller villages, the people do not have access to something like a shoe store. If they can’t make the trip to Gulu (roughly 45-minute drive), their only other option is to hope there’s something in the mini markets set up in the village centers. This is where Joyce sets up her mat to display her shoes.

Her second endeavor was purchasing the seeds to plant eucalyptus trees in her garden. Once these have fully grown, she can sell the wood for a good price. Eucalyptus trees are used for the central pole of an otlum home as well as for other construction.

Joyce gives all the glory to God for the opportunities He has provided.

“Right now, even though difficulty comes, I put my trust in God. God is able,” Joyce said. “When I was growing up, the North was a lot of fighting with the rebels. Things was not easy. A lot of people died like my grandmom, granddad, aunties, but I saw God is real. Without God, right now I would not be here today.”