Nelile and I have met twice with the group of girls with me bringing the Word and prayer and music and Nelile bringing the talent, creativity and instructions for the cards. Praise Him for the way He uses the different gifts to accomplish His work.
The first meeting Nelile told the girls to bring things at their homes – i.e. chicken feathers, small pebbles, seeds etc. One thing Nelile is intentional about is that she wants to bring hope to these girls that no matter what situation they are in they can do something. So maybe they don’t have shoes for school but they can make something with what they have around the house to raise money for the shoes. Poverty is so much more than money, it really is a mindset and we have to break that stronghold of poverty over these girls in Jesus’ name.
Nelile was seriously impressed at how much talent these girls alread
y had and the cards they made were beautiful. Nelile took the cards home and wrote comments in her notebook on what each girl did well and coud improve on. She gave them homework to learn how to make this Swazi bead design, licebesha, so we can glue those to the cards.
The 2nd meeting one of the girls had learned to make licebesha and she had made one and it was awesome!! They had brought more things from home i.e. flowers and leaves, and made another set of cards. My sister, Danielle, also got to meet the girls and her creative juices even got flowing and she made a card 🙂
Last night Nelile and I met with Julie http://julieanderson.myadventures.org, one of my amazing gifted co-laborers with AIM here in Swaziland. Those two bounced ideas off of each other, from cow dung to egg shells (you should have been there). Nelile is getting more ideas which gets me excited.
TOMORROW (and this is what I’m asking you to pray for) we are going to Johannesburg to meet with a group in South Africa who are also making greeting cards for income for some women there. We are meeting with the president, who is flying in from London, to talk to her, possibly partnering with them. It’s going to be helpful to see how we make cards in Africa and where they get resources and really just to learn from them – I’m not about reinventing the wheel. Thank you in advance for your prayers!
