December & January

Carla goes all out. 

getting a tire fixed at "Modern" Tire

Emma Grace rode with me to Anderson to collect our Galeria dos Sonhos items at Blvd Baptist. We stopped for a photo shoot. 

Happy 2014!

Emma Grace

Trespassing in Anderson, SC

Only this guy could get me into a Cracker Barrel. (On our way to Mammoth Cave)

This happened. It hurt. 

Natty at Mammoth Cave

My shadow.

Greatest Missionaries Ever. Go Mieze Goat Project!

for monty-

and all of you other kind souls concerned about me and my future.

Thanksgiving and Christmas and being home with my family for the holiday's was wonderful. The kids greeted me at the door and wrestled each other up the stairs to see who would get to show me their presents first. I loved watching them open gifts from me and was touched when Catherine opened her envelope and said, "Uh. You don't have any money. You shouldn't have." Oh her sweet, sweet heart.

Around New Year's I moved things from the attic of my Atlanta house and plan to go back again tomorrow to finally move my furniture. Emma Grace came to help me move. The Fallin's came and we shot fireworks.

Jan. 9th I left for Austin, Texas and spent five days there visiting with my friends the Gaspard's, getting the last of my possessions from fellow missionaries, Jim and Twyla Taylor and meeting with Iris Ministries Director, Heidi Baker. The food was out of this world, the fellowship, beyond words. It felt so good to be among my extended family. It hurt to say goodbye to Jim and Twyla, knowing they would be going back to Pemba without me. The Gaspard's have close friends with an orphanage in Guatemala and they want me to go there. I am waiting to hear back from the ministry there to see if my skills will fit their needs.

Meanwhile, my close friend Sherri would like for me to come to Cameroon and work with orphan girls there, establishing another vocational training school. I am not sure exactly what it would look like but there are opportunities to help a local farm and train the girls in making and selling goat's milk products. Apparently Cameroon has a much stronger economy than Pemba and we would have a market to sell all sorts of items.

Galeria dos Sonhos once again is still open thanks to the generosity of strangers who continue to buy our goods. Apparently the mayor of Detroit bought one of our ties! I took all the goods to Texas and sold enough to buy fabric and pay salaries for almost two months!

I am still strongly considering the opportunity in South Africa, but want to try to fit in visits to Guatemala and Cameroon in the near future. Iris Ministries also has a base in Southern Sudan in dire need of help. I have also applied for a handful of "real" jobs. You know, the kind that pay money on a regular basis and offer health benefits. Only a few of them fit the bill for allowing me to be able to be in Africa more often than not. I am seeking them out because I do want some training in the area of global development. I love that I got thrown into the deep end and learned day by day and in total faith during the last two years. I also believe that some academic training would help equip me also. There are some great organizations out there making huge strides in eradicating poverty.

Yet, there are simply not enough days spent with my family and friends. I still have not been to visit many of you. I still delight in all home cooked meals, trips to the grocery store, kale smoothies, magazines, a good book and the world wide web.

So that's the not very exciting update. The current plan is to map out a few months and raise a few funds to be able to travel to Guatemala, South Africa and Cameroon on a three month trip to evaluate those choices. If other opportunities arise, I will add them to the list. Kenya and Congo are also on the long list. I am excited about the possibilities and the future. I am loving life and so so happy to be home but anxiously awaiting the next place that I know will capture my heart.

See you on the tennis court, Monty. Be afraid.

oct-dec kinda lame but better than nothing pictorial

Home Sweet Home

Christmas with Natty the Over-Sized 5 Year Old

Happy New Year

No one loves me like Lynne Burke. Breakfast in Bed.

Abbeville, SC

The Country Living Fair Sister Date with Carla- Stone Mountain, GA

Hartwell, GA

Dahlonega, GA with Catherine (trying to convince her to go to North Georgia College!)

Emma Grace (trying to convince her that she is stunning and it is ok for me to put this photo on the internet)

My Sidekick

Road trip with Mom & Fran to Highlands, NC ( I don't do cold)

so sorry! i've been busy bathing and eating salad and using the internet.

A blank page. A white canvas and so so long overdue. I am alive and well and sitting in Reed Creek by a little fireplace. I came home in October and was swept away into a completely other world. A world in which I was very familiar but felt as if I were experiencing it as someone else entirely. A friend I have not seen in years just commented how she feels like it was just yesterday and little has changed. But I am not at all the same. I am a completely different person, walking around in my old wardrobe, meeting up with friends I have known forever. I try to squeeze into their lives and conversations and my heart wants to be there in these moments with them, but it is floating about above a village in Africa instead. I try to bring it back and relate to all that is culturally relevant in this beautifully familiar world, but it won’t come back and linger here for very long.

Every day is full and I feel the clock ticking. The TO DO list is forever long and I am a little overwhelmed with all I have to do yet. There are so many of you I have not seen and I apologize for that. I am not good at this. This living here 8 weeks out of the year. Since being home, I cannot begin to tell you what all I have been doing but I can count the days I had absolutely nothing to do. They are few. For now I am moving everything out of my house in East Point. I should have done it in the very beginning, but I had no idea what to do with it all and left it there for convenience sake. Now that I am most certain I won’t be back in Atlanta any time soon, I feel the need to have everything that I own under one roof and not scattered about between basements of friends and relatives. So this week I have been moving. And I will be moving still in the weeks to come.

Natty and I drove to Brandenburg, Kentucky and I got to meet Laura & John Steen’s newest addition, Baby Eryn who was born in March 2013. Baby Molly is no longer a baby and is all grown up and calls Nathaniel, Danielfaniel. Natty loved getting to play in the snow, was smitten with Hailey the Tween and was just the other day boasting to his big brother that he had a friend Owen, who was not his brother’s friend too, but just his and his alone. The time spent with Laura’s sweet family was way too short. We plan our ideal scenarios, where we are next door neighbors and pop in and out of each others' lives all day, but we have never even lived in the same time zone. Four days was such a tiny visit.  

I have been able to speak to several of you in the Hartwell area and share a little about the last year in Pemba. I love getting to talk about all that was accomplished and am quite amazed by it myself. You all played a part in it and it is just fun to see what was done by everyone giving a little.

The Galeria dos Sonhos project is still running well and each month I have no idea how we are going to sell anything. Then someone comes along and suddenly we have money again. To those who buy from us, THANK YOU. For those who would like to, let me know and I can send you an inventory of items. I have taken them off of our online site for the time being. If you know of a retail space who would like to sell our fair trade items, let me know.

Mozambique has been experiencing some pretty dire political unrest and recently a commercial plane (that my friends and I fly regularly) crashed with no survivors, apparently the pilot crashed the plane deliberately. This is the world over which my heart hovers.

Meanwhile I am here, wanting to see each and every one of you and sit really close and know what is on your heart. I want long chats by the fire and to watch Jeopardy! because what could be more glorious than that?

And then there is the really big question that even I am asking. What next? The answer is that I don’t know. If I had any inkling I would tell you. You will be the first to know. For now, I am only getting direction one order at a time. For now I am hearing, “You are on vacation. Stop fretting and REST." I am also certain it is time to physically move all my belongings into one space and lock them up. So in the next few weeks I hope to have everything I own in a little storage space in Reed Creek, tidy, organized, together and sitting quietly until further orders are received.

I have fulfilled my two year commitment to Iris Ministries and I do feel that I did what I set out to do. It was my intent to establish a school of vocational training and that we did. A vocational school, a language school and a small social business are now all up and running, with amazing leaders at the helm of each. If I were to return I would simply be an administrator, putting out fires and telling people where to go and what to do. That’s not me. The foundations have been built and that is me. I am The Foundation Establisher. Now I am simply looking for someone who wants a Foundation Establisher and who maybe wants one to come and go and come and go and come and go. I am trying to prepare myself for whatever that may look like. Living here and traveling or moving abroad again soon. I could write pages on this subject but will stop for now.

Thank you for giving to me, loving me so well and covering me in prayer.

Much love,

Grace

i'm back in my beloved South

the day after the whale watching i boarded a plane and flew to South Africa and then Atlanta. i'd been planning it for several weeks. it all began when i went to get my visa renewed and change my plane ticket. i had purchased it with dates at random a long time ago and had planned to change the dates to correspond with my visa. but when i went to change the flight that never costs anything, she told me i would have to buy a new ticket and that it could not be changed. i pulled out my credit card to just change it but something told me not to. a felt a check in my spirit and i knew i needed to give this more thought and prayer. so thought and prayer i gave it. and i knew i was not to spend the money on staying another month and that even though another month would give me more time with all our projects that there would never be a "good" time to leave. so i circled the date on the calendar and told no one. i decided why not surprise them. it's not every day you can show up at a field trip and surprise your sister and nieces and nephews. but i got to do just that. and the field trip included ice cream from a dairy in cleveland, georgia. so it was worth hiding in an office and explaining my story to strangers. my sister's face was priceless. my 5 year old nephew never left my side.

"Cat on Porch" - Abbeville, South Carolina

so, i'm home. and yes it feels wonderful to be back and back to "normal" and hot, running water and delicious food and family. but re-entry never gets easier. it just gets different. i no longer speak Portuguese to all the black people but i do find myself putting my keys and change from the cashier in my bra. i bathed twice a day for the first week, just because i could but now bathing is overrated and takes so much time and it's so hot in there. i see all these glaring flaws in our society and i find myself starring at people. we stare in mozambique. we spit too. i can't do that anymore.

i miss my friends and the school and my students. i just heard that the renamo have ended the peace pact they had with the frelimo since 1992. my heart aches. and then i get this message today. ROFI GOT A SCHOLARSHIP!!! sweet, precious Rofi. one of my students!! is going to UNIVERSITY!!!! and i want to be there to hug his neck. but i am here. in America with all these people on their cell phones.

i am spending a whole entire day with my sister tomorrow. just the two of us. something we have not done since my 32nd birthday- over four years ago. 

so i am good. i am happy and i will be okay. my taxes are in the process of getting done a little late and i am dealing with "real life" one day at a time. but my heart is there and i have no patience for your first world problems. but i still love you and i need you to love me too. 

more soon...

whale watching

A beautiful story from a friend of a friend: Pursuing Normal

This girl is amazing. She goes into war zones! She is my hero. She shows me there is hope for me yet in living between the two worlds of the West and the Third World. She loves and cherishes them both. That is a healthy place to be. Where you don't feel guilty in either one. She makes me feel normal for filling my online cart on J. Crew just for fun. This is probably one of the things I wrestle with the most as a "missionary", living between two worlds. Even my own world here in Mozambique is so divided- extreme beauty and extreme poverty. I consider our beach to be the most beautiful in all the world. At our Sunday service at the beach house, the view always commands my attention. It is breathtaking and I cannot take my eyes off it. It is expansive and turquoise and white. Whales were breeching in the distance. Blow spray high into the air and flapping their fins and tails. It is surreal to sit and watch. That is my view to the east, to the west are mud hut villages and garbage dumps and barefooted children scavenging among the rubbish. But I see the beauty in both. These tiny brown-eyed treasures.

A few nights ago I sat with a group of Zimbabwean and South African men who bashed our causes and made fun of missionaries and claimed the poor will always be and that is simply the way it is and you cannot help them. I can agree with some of their claims regarding ways in which the West try to help but only hurt the poor by giving handouts and only creating a cycle of dependency. But I cannot agree with standing idly by while the poor die and live in a world of injustice. I also understand that these men grew up with the extreme poor in their backyard and are familiar with their cultures. I think a lot about this and am careful not to fall into the cycle. I see it all so clearly- there are really poor people in the world, God told me to go help, so I did. I don't see how they can't have sympathy or at least a little bit of compassion. It all weighed heavy on my heart. As I prayed and asked God to show me the truth behind it all, I clearly heard Him say, "They're just ignorant." The wealthy, educated white men are the ignorant ones. I don't need them to join my plight or my cause. But I don't understand a world that doesn't have compassion on the poor. Even the Bible says the poor will always be among us. But that doesn't mean we have the right to look away and ignore it.

In the story above, Cassandra goes into a war zone and plants flowers. Something God told her to do to show love to a frightened people and bring HOPE. It is frivolous and it doesn't make sense but it brought hope and beauty to a village running from war and guns and dying. I do believe that we are called to be His hands and feet and the poor are our responsibility. Knowing your place is as simple as asking Him to show you who needs help day by day. It is the "wise" who are missing out on the simplest of truths. Politics aside, history aside, God called us to love and love does look like something. Somedays I am terrible at it. Other days I do a pretty decent job. But it comes from Him, and His eyes and His wisdom. The white men at the table the other night simply don't know the truth. I can't imagine living in their world, one where you fend for yourself and fight for worthless treasures. The treasures are in the garbage dump, y'all. The last place you'd ever look. And the answers to their plight may look like pansies in the dirt, which seems a little absurd. But I am finding God is like that- extravagant in love and mercy and kindness. And he sees the treasure in the scruffy, chain-smoking South African men. And I don't and He still loves me.

legit with labels

promises

The rainbow below showed up yesterday. I had left the sweat shop of the sewing school and went to sit by the sea and think. The schools and their responsibilities bring a certain amount of pressure and I go there to sort my thoughts. The English school is no longer my worry as Adele is running with that. Tim is only arriving tomorrow to begin Vocational School and the guy at the Kauri resort has not yet paid my students. I am furious. He promised them pay and a letter of reference. They've not received either. It's Mozambique. I have little recourse. But I do have my thoughts sorted now and he will rue the day he disappointed Mana Graça. The sewing school does bear a great deal of responsibility but just as it was created out of my simply being, I know it will continue out of that same place. I did meet this week with the hotel property manager about using their retail space and he is keen. He even offered me a job, but I turned him down. I thought about it though. But I even told him as he was making the offer that you could not pay me to live here. He didn't get it. So now we sweat and we sew and we make all that we can and all the rest of the time I strategize about how to sell this and make ends meet. Doing and Resting and finding the balance. I am not so good at it.

A friend has given me a little dingy bungalow on the beach for the week. I have finally slept. Only once did I sleep through the night but it did wonders. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore. But I woke in pools of sweat and wet hair. The bungalow was built in the 80's and nothing has been changed. It is a single room with a tiny loo and a teeny tiny "kitchen" with a mini-fridge. But I woke at 4am to views of little svelte Mozambican men pushing their wooden boats out for the early morning catch. I still can't breathe in my real house. Mold or something. There are lots of things to make you sick here and I guess if I had to choose this one is not so bad.

I've been sending bundles of our goods home to Georgia and I think I will have my choices of places to sell locally. I've been humbled by the response and am excited to be able to keep the business going. As I sat there by the sea worrying and unable to relax, something said stay and so I did. I got to see the promise in the sky and I know it will all be okay. God loves these women so much more than me and He's got them. He knows so well how to care for me and He will do the same for them. So I am resting in this. Working way hard and resting and somewhere in between.

I've heard rumors today about your government shut down and I am anxious to read up and hear more but I've sworn off politics. So tell me about the weather and the leaves. I am getting excited to join morning tennis and lovely mornings at the cabin. Some days their visions save me.

Arco iris

Moving in!

Ramadan is waiting on me by the beach now. We are going to the market to buy new locks for our doors. We have two of them. And four windows and four walls! 

It used to be a storage room and was really dirty. But these ladies had it clean in no time.

Took this on the way to buy locks (the first time).

All ready to move in! 

Precious Alima and Amazing Twyla

Our newest edition!!

Autumn

i miss seasons. and these things:

1. coats-barbour international jacket 2. jeans-jcrew toothpick jeans 3. boots-l.l.bean boots 4. tennis-the old folks/the tennis gang 5. the cabin- hartwell, ga 30643

galeria dos sonhos

I have been living and breathing sewing. I sew in my sleep. All 3 of our machines are broken though and it is frustrating. One is with Francois in "a shop" in the baixa. The others are waiting on the visitor coming in a few weeks who can hopefully help us. One really needs a part that I am trying to get sent up from South Africa. I am seeing the need for us to invest in a treadle, but I don't like the quality of sewing they produce. But it is our only other choice at the moment. I have resorted to using the interlocker for what we can and then hand sewing. So far it is working. We can do runners and cocktail napkins and lots of things this way. Well, not lots. So we really need to get these machines running. Andrea arrives Thursday with a brand new INDUSTRIAL SINGER! AND she has gotten a few of our goods in a shop in London. You can view a few of our things HERE. And you can always purchase on our ETSY SITE. (New products arriving there October 1st).

Sempre Bonita Veronica

To Betty

Dear Betty, 

So sorry I have not posted. I have been busy, of course, and then there were the days we didn't have electricity. I did get on the computer yesterday but spent the time writing an article for the Hartwell paper. I hope it's good. Sewing class is rolling along, but our machines are broken. Something is now wrong with every machine. I am praying in a repairman. With one it is a major engine issue, the others are issues with bobbin tension and small things that I cannot seem to fix. We did finally get the interlocker working and so I have now, yet again, changed gears in what we are doing and designing, to make things that I can solely make by hand or the interlocker or those combined. I have been doing afternoon tutoring sessions with one of my students, Rofi. He reminds me of myself. He looks at me so confused. And I usually return the look. Then we laugh. I love that kid. 

I bought Veronica big canvas prints of photos I took of her when we had her little birthday celebration when Mom & Dad were here. (I took pictures and will show you). I wish you could have seen her face and heard her. She kept saying, "wow, wow" over and over. She pointed to herself and said, "I am beautiful." She said she is going to put them in her bedroom. I had seen the little tiny tattered pictures of distant family she had on a piece of cardboard box in her bedroom and wanted to give her nice photos of her family. It was fun. I love that woman. 

We have running water this morning. A rarity. We have also been without gas in the whole town and I have been conservative with heating water and cooking. Today is pay day for the Gallery employees and I love pay day. I love giving them a nice wad of cash and watching their faces of joy and appreciation. Ramadan has virtually been working for almost nothing and today I am paying him a full salary. Pray the business grows so that we can keep doing this. We really need to get into another shop, or two. Andrea took some of our things to London to try to sell there.

I am supposed to meet with a local hotel here about us having space in their lobby. Pray about that. 

It's starting to get hot here but that's one of those things I don't want to even talk about for fear the weather can hear me. 

I had a dream last night that I was in a mall trying to find Macy's. I kept walking around inside and could not find it. Then I thought it would be easier to find if I walked around the outside of the mall, so I did. But I just kept on walking around. Each time I came to a corner I would expect to see Macy's around the corner but it was never there. I think it means I am overdue for a day at the mall with you.

I just finished breakfast and I have to get ready for work.

I love hearing from you. Write when you can and I will do the same.

Love

Grace

long day

i'm exhausted. but here is what we made. one machine is broken. completely dead. i took it to the only guy i knew who could fix it and he got out a phillips head the size of my arm to try to unscrew these teeny tiny screws. i politely declined his assistance and grabbed my machine and got out of there. men. we move to our new space on Monday. we are making these and clutches and iPad sleeves until we use up all our remnants. it is going to take a month for our latest goods to get to the States so meanwhile i have to invest more to have more to do while we wait. beth, the business planner has also drafted us an inventory sheet. we are getting organized! 

and by "we" i mean twyla taylor. my idea, her labor. we are indebted. 

muito orgulhoso (very proud)

I've been dreaming about this day for a very long time, two years actually, maybe more. For sure more. For years and years I have been dreaming about working in Africa and helping the poor get jobs. Yesterday, ten of my students graduated from an internship at a local hotel/restaurant and I could not be more proud of them. They behaved, showed up on time, worked hard and have made me so proud. It was none of my doing but solely them just stepping up to their potential because they were given a chance. I am so honored to know these young men. Their starched clothing is deceitful. You would have to walk a day in their shoes to understand their lives and the poverty. They were promised to be the first choices in any future hiring at Kauri. The "resort" wants 10 more interns so we will resume the program in October. From this, they will receive letters of recommendation from the general manager, which should help with future employment. There are other hotels in the area and we want to help find them full time employment. Now with their experience this should be a little easier.

Cesar and Rofi (standing) still want to go to university and Amilcar (purple shirt) is anxious to get back to our Galeria dos Sonhos and we are missing him there. I am beaming. All I did was show up. I simply came here and I live my life as normally as possible. (I did dig a worm out of my finger during this ceremony.) But when I look at this picture, I don't see myself as Mother Teresa. I see stellar young men who have changed my life and a simple white girl who 10 years too late finally said yes to God's call on her life, and He redeemed it all so perfectly as only He can do.

You too can all celebrate in their accomplishment as you, my encouragers, have made this happen. Thank you.

Much love,
Grace

Alima, a Godsend.

she’s good. real good. Alima is her name and now two days a week she will be sewing those super straight lines of hers on OUR serviettes! her work is stunning. i am massively impressed. and she is just so sweet and adorable and kind. i really love having her on our team. so now i have SIX employees and still not sure how we are going to do this but believing.

since we will soon be sold in the Atlanta coffee shop, i wanted to create a line of products just for them. things coffee shop people buy. so we made these iPad sleeves and will make some in various sizes for other gadgets. i am also experimenting with clutches and cosmetic bags. interfacing is not something i can rely on getting locally, so i also want to experiment with other textiles to see what can work as a substitute. 

also, my visa expires Saturday so i went into town today to immigration to renew it. it was so easy! i just pulled my scooter right in front, handed them my paper work and voila! going to immigration is usually almost as bad as tribunal court. but this time, i bet i didn't sit in those ancient tweed covered sofas 5 minutes. it was such a breeze. and it was cheap! i thought it would be $100 but it was only $16. i’m not a tourist anymore and i am finally coming into my own in this, my scattered, dusty little town. i stopped into 556 for a very late lunch and ran into Ana and Ina, and got to have lunch with them. i love hanging out with them. i feel known and loved and understood. 

later today i met a couple from Austin, Texas who have a composting business. they just came over to look at the property where i live to scope out the place for composting and maybe getting chickens. i really, really want to have our own chickens. i just need to convince the community that we need them. eggs benedict anyone? composting is so easy and i don’t know why we don’t do it. 

*in the publishing of this message i got word that we are getting our own room! the sewing school. galeria dos sonhos will actually have a place of our very own. oh, how i will miss spending my morning's with jim and twyla, but not lugging stuff out from under the bed in her guest room. we now have our very own space! not outdoors! i can hardly wait. such great news. we can have proper tables and actual walls where the wind won't blow dirt all over us and the machines. right now we are sewing on plastic tables and our machines bounce up and down when you sew. ecstatic! this is such good news. this means we are now going to work another hour. the girls don't know this yet. but we really need to be working a bit longer. we've been leaving to get out of The Taylor's way and give them back their home for the afternoon. but now we will break for rice and beans and then, "Back to work!" 

Ramadan teaching Alima. i think this is going to be the other way around very soon.

beautiful, talented Alima

i thought the fact that someone etched the price of a DIRE into the counter at immigration was funny.  19,200? that must have been a very long time ago.

AND i bathed last night! with hot water. what is up with that? awful. i know!

gallery of dreams and a new hiree

We are having fun watching our labor turn into these creations. So much fun that I hired another worker. Actually, that was not why. I am a sucker. I so adore and admire these women that when one finds me I cannot turn her away. Her vibrant head wrap. Those big brown eyes. Francois had asked me if I would take her. Once a week only. I know her. I understand a little of her life and what she goes home to. She is a part of our little cleaning lady gang here on our base. I see her 3 days a week. Now I am going to see her twice, at the Gallery when she comes to the hut to sew with us. I wish you could have seen her face when I asked her to come and work with us. PRICELESS. She has a nose ring and it is way cool and she pulls it off beautifully. As Francois told me, she is older and the cleaning and hauling water is so hard on these older women and for them to sew is such a gift. Apparently she knows how. She was taught to sew but not how to cut things out and make patterns. So I will teach her. I love her heart and her personality and am excited to have added her to the team. How in the world we are going to fit her in to our little assembly line in our little gazebo I do not know. Nor do I know how I am going to pay her as we are still a little in the red. But the Business Plan is so, so beautiful and promising. We just need one more big sale and all of that will be profit. We are almost there! Our plan really is incredible. You should see the numbers. We don't need to sell a whole lot to keep us going. I can keep these 5, now 6! people employed easily with our current production rates, we just need to get in a few more shops. Speaking of which, we will soon be on a shelf in Chattahoochee Coffee Shop in Atlanta, Georgia! (Mary West, tell your friends. Kylene Compaan, you are my hero.)

A load of goods will be shipped next week, one dress in a size 5 (the one Luci is wearing below), one pillow cover in the Afonso yellow & purple pattern, lots of napkins and runners in all sorts of colors, NEW cocktail napkins and the bow ties from the photo above. Look for them on our Etsy page HERE. We made this clutch today and are playing around with designs for fabric goods that will sell well at Chattahoochee Coffee; iPad sleeves, cosmetic bags and more.

gallery of dreams

the past two days we have not had electricity. it makes our fancy electric machines, for the moment, worthless and i see the value in the rusty old treadles. these are days when you wonder if this can happen, can you run a sewing business in a country with unreliable electricity or do we have to change our methods to more primitive ones? but then these lovely labels Andrea ordered arrived today and i remembered i had forgotten to post the pics i took of Luci this weekend. and the vision all comes back again. and at least something productive occurred. the online shop has contacted us and we are interested in using them to sell our products. we will be on a shelf in the Atlanta coffee shop in 8 days. this is happening. and you can buy here.

i'm enough.

l
pardon her French. :)

faith like veronica

I've had another sleepless night. There is SOMETHING in this house that I am allergic to and it causes sneezing and a itchy throat and makes for such an awful nights sleep. Not to mention the mosquitos and the Mosques- screaming, blaring in a scratchy microphone at 3:00am. It usually awakens me to my own "call to prayer" and I do so willingly and with both eyes shut, but this time it just made me mad. I've wondered if I could tolerate it more if I knew what he was saying, but it is probably best that I don't. 

Veronica just left. She got here at the crack of dawn. She did my laundry by hauling water on her head and filled my bath room and kitchen buckets in the same manner. She wore a plastic bag tightly around her hair. I watched her cleaning the bathroom, taking long stares at herself in the mirror. She's a little vain. I like this about her. I am rarely here when she is here but we didn't have electricity today so I canceled sewing class. I am normally prepared for days like this. We could have cut out patterns and price tags, but all I could think about was going back to my dark house for a nap. So I did. Veronica dropped pots and pans and banged around in the kitchen, but I slept in spite of it all. I woke up in time to find the power back on and her ironing my linen pants. She was about to give up because she couldn't get the iron to work. I twisted the dial until it lit up and began ironing. She sat in the chair next to me and I ironed while she talked. I finished the pants and she picked up a shirt and we switched places. We talked about men and babies, what most all women talk about, eventually. She's my age and has had 6 children. One died when he was 1 week old, Martinu. She talked about her poverty and praised God in the next breath. She is full of life. Her faith inspires me. He takes care of her, she says. She's not bitter or angry or fearful. Just vain and happy and full of life. It's a moment I want to bottle up and keep for forever. Lying on the rope bed with Veronica. She taught me how to say, "I love you" in Makua, but I have already forgotten.

Last week I noticed Veronica wearing make-up and I told her, "You look beautiful today." She smiled, waited a beat and replied, "I always look beautiful."  Yes, my friend, I stand corrected, you always look beautiful, you always amaze me, and you always trick me into doing my own ironing. 

After lunch, I met with the GM of the restaurant where the boys are interning and we have plans to have their graduation ceremony on Saturday. He is paying them 1000 mets for one month of full-time labor. It's a little more than $30. He doesn't have to pay them anything so we are grateful for that but it just seems like such a small amount for so much hard work. I think I want to find a way to double that, which mostly likely means me and you. I know they will most likely squander it and they will all be walking around with new cell phones next week but I want to see them rewarded. 

I've been thinking a lot about Rofi, who we assisted in applying for a scholarship. All he needs for four years of university is $5000USD. I wish I could find a way to have him work for me during the summer and make enough to support himself each year. That means I need a business, a license, capital and revenue. I know there are solutions and many of them quite simple. But he needs a solution now. I always feel like my work here is a drop in the bucket, but when the bucket is empty it does make a difference. 

I am constantly blown away at how my just showing up has created so many little things that are helping. I love having a job where I get to see the fruit of my labor every day. And the real secret is that I don't know what I am doing. I speak the language like a two year old. I have no credentials in telling Africans how to live their lives, but every day I get to help them with immediate needs and long term ones too. And every day they make me the most grateful woman on earth. It is the same cycle for me. I wake up completely clueless and often sleep deprived, but go about my day simply being who I am, and trying to join the Africans in their relationship focused flow of life. They make fun of how fast I walk and work and I try to slow down and join them. I teach what little I know and they forever change me. I want it bottled up, the cup of joy and the cup of suffering. It is my biggest prayer, that it sticks.