Category Archives: africa

Beads for Africa

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Many of you know, that we’re planning a mission to South Sudan in 2012. Our church has a large membership of South Sudanese refugees. They’ve told us the story of the civil war, which raged since 1985, and we celebrated together when a resolution passed in January of this year making South Sudan a separate nation, finally ending the war.

Approximately four million of South Sudan’s citizens fled the war, most by literally walking across the country, and have lived in refugee camps in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda since the fighting began (some now in their second generation of camp life!) A small number of refugees have been able to immigrate to North America, Australia and Europe, but most remain in Africa in refugee camps made for 1500 residents hosting as many as 80,000, on one meal a day.
Our church has made a commitment to aid in repatriation of one city, literally rebuilding most of the basic services. Our family is planning to be part of that trip. We’re building water filtration systems, a school, and micro-enterprises, and preparing a place for refugees to return to.
If you are interested in helping our trip, we are actively raising donations with fundraiser sales and donations. Donations can be made to Kent Lutheran Church 336 2nd Ave Kent WA 98032 and checks to KLC marked “Sudan Mission Fund.” There are no church overhead costs on this mission.
We’re trying to raise $15,000 for the school building, $10,000 for teacher and school supplies, $5,000 for water filtration projects, and an additional $5,000 for other microbusinesses. Our travel expenses will be about $3,000 per person, which we are also responsible for raising.
If you would like to support our project, we have the first fundraiser items available: Ugandan paper beads.
These beads are fair trade and made of recycled magazines, calendars and advertisements.

beads from uganda, a set on Flickr.

These beads are for sale to support our mission trip to South Sudan. Beads are priced as marked (in photo description) + $5 shippping. The beads were hand-made in Uganda and range in size. If you have questions, email Jessica about the strand you want (identify it with the number) jessc098@gmail.com. We will do our best to keep inventory updated, and sold items marked as such.

 

One Little Hen: Children’s Book Review

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Thanks for sticking it out with me. I promise not to make this a huge long list of book and movie reviews, but I’ve found a few treasures recently that I just had to share.

“One Hen” is a story that I picked up at the library to read to my girls about microlending. It plays strongly on our family theme of using what we have to lift up others. My oldest daughter, Destiny, has been involved in making our Kiva loan to Isabelle in Peru to start her clothing store. Destiny has been watching her payments come in and seeing that we can use our small amount to build up Isabelle’s wealth and her children’s health, and her community’s well-being. That’s a huge influence for $25.

Likewise, I do similarly in my Lending Club accounts. While we prefer not to borrow money in our family, we don’t see harm in using what we have to lift others around us.

One Hen is a story of Kojo, a little boy who lives in Ghana. He borrows a tiny amount of money to buy a chicken and with that chicken he makes his family stronger by giving himself and his mother an egg every week. The chicken lays five eggs per week, so that leaves a few for Kojo to sell. Selling his eggs each week gives Kojo enough money to pay back his loan, and after a few more months of diligent savings he can buy some more hens, and then some more. Kojo’s microinvestments into his tiny egg business grow his community by leaps and bounds.

The story follows Kojo and his egg business and the many people it touches through until Kojo is teaching his grandchildren about stewardship of their resources.

It’s a delightful story and easy for all ages to understand, though it has a lot of words, so readers should be 3rd grade and up. I think it’s a great book for families to read and discuss together.

The illustrations are also beautiful in the book. The animals, and colorful market scenes and happy children. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.