Dress a Girl Around the World

By making this journey I have found so many of my friends ready and willing to help.  The young women's group at church, friends, Facebook friends, even spreading into Utah have joined in my personal mission to make and aquire as many dresses as possible between now and October 31.  i have personally made 17 dresses in 1 week...and am still sewing!! Pictures to soon follow...

We had three sewers and a cutter and a go-fer and it worked out great.  For the first time we did good in the 4 1/2 hours that we sewed with making 7 dresses.  We came up with two versions and we liked them both.  I don't know how to add pics here so I'll have to let Rachel do that part!

Kim and I left the dresses at the church and our pastor set up the table for us.  I printed out info from this website and put it on the table.  I left the service early mainly as I knew that Kim hadn't been able to express that she was going with me  to Uganda and in times of speaking about the dresses and how to make them during our service time I hadn't mentioned her going with due to I wanted to keep the focus on our Pastor who is leaving for Sri Lanka in August.  Kim did a beautiful job of talking about the dresses and the presentation at the well and about the girls folding their dresses and saving them for Christmas. 

Several people are interested in the next workshop which will be in August..  And I've recieved several comments on the pics on FB and people are making them at home.  

I have a challenge that I am only taking thee outfits with me but will leave behind either a shirt or a skirt for every ten dresses over 100.   I think my friends are going to keep me at my word. 

The participation of this is reaffirming that God is calling me to go in November with Rachel.  Kim, Pattee and I are excited about going and trusting God each step of the way.

Once a month members from around the country call in for an hour of updates, ideas and to encourage one another. Normally it's the third Thursday of each month but because I was in Uganda on the 15th we postponed it to the 22nd. 

Lisa, Director of Women's Sponsorship: Reported that she has fifteen new profiles of women needing to be sponsored. She gave us brief overviews of two of the women. Rita was married with several children when one of the children overheard Rita's husband talking outside their hut one night. He was negotiating with some men the price of selling them Rita's head. They would sacrifice the head to demons and believed that that sacrifice would bring wealth. 

Once the men left the child woke Rita and told her what he'd heard. She grabbed her children and ran through the bush where she met a kind man who gave her money to escape Kenya. She now lives in Uganda and once she is sponsored will join our program to learn skills to become a businesswoman and will be set up in a business of her own.

Another woman, Dorothy, lived in constant fear when her husband brought home a co-wife who was constantly high on opium. She and the husband would terrorize  Dorothy by chasing her with machetes. She is now apart from her husband but needs to learn to care for herself and her children. This program and your $36 a month will give Dorothy a new life. To sponsor a woman or receive more information contact Lisa@h4wi.org 

Rachel: Shared of the sponsorship luncheon I attended in Uganda. Team members were given the opportunity to meet the women they sponsor and listen to the testimonies of those who had been living a life of despair and now have hope and dignity through our program.

I told about Grace who was living under a tree. People ridiculed her and called her "dog". She cried out to God: "I am not a dog! I am a person!" Her friend Catherine brought her to Smile Africa Ministries where she was given a job as a cook for 420 children. Grace is in the program--she has a home with her grandchildren who lost their parents--she is learning English--she is learning God's principals for operating a business. She holds her head high when she proclaims, "God has heard me."

It was a powerful and emotional afternoon as we heard story after story of God's goodness.

We have a team going to Uganda in November and are looking forward to sponsoring more women, well dedications, child sponsorships and much more.

Hope 4 Women will be leading several trips a year. We are currently working on an April trip to Rwanda and Uganda. We will start out in Rwanda with our friends Todd and Andria who moved there to run an orphanage. We will have the opportunity to see the Genocide memorial and a choice of gorilla trekking or riding in a van through a game park. After a week in Rwanda reaching out to the women and children there we will travel to Uganda for another week. It should be very exciting.

We are also looking into the possibility of connecting with a new ministry in Lima, Peru and if that all works out we will go there in June of 2011.

And of course we will continue taking the pillowcase dresses on each trip. We took over 1800 dresses on this last trip to Uganda. What a thrill to give out dresses made by us, our friends and families. People who were on the trip and had made dresses with their friends said they couldn’t describe the feelings of putting those dresses on the girls. When you are here and making the dresses you are pleased to know they are going to girls who may have never owned a new dress—but when you are there and actually seeing the dress you made on a little girl it changes you even more! Thank you to all of you who made this possible!

Often we would see a guardian or mother or sometimes a girl would take off her dress and fold it carefully. We were told the girls were saving the dresses for Christmas. These girls who had never owned a new dress—not only were receiving one now but were willing to save it so they could have a new Christmas dress.

One village pastor couldn’t believe it when we arrived at the demonstration gardens with dresses for the girls. He told our Ugandan friends after we left. “NEVER has anyone come and done anything like this for us. Do you think they will come back?”

You can go to the photo gallery to see pictures. I try to get pictures from each group of people but you can imagine with over 1800 dresses it’s difficult.

We also heard from Sue, Sydney, and Cheryl. They talked about their dress a girl events and shared their wonderful enthusiasm! If you missed the call--you missed what they had to say 

To date we have delivered 6,857 dresses!!

Thank YOU!

Our friends at K-Love are airing a story today. Be sure to listen in. Go to klove.com to find a station in your area.

Hi,

I just read about the "Dress a Girl Around the World" program.  I am very excited about helping with this mission.  I am currently downloading everything I can from the web site.  I enjoy sewing and I have friends that can sew as well.  So, I hope to host an event at my house once I get things organized.  Caroline

I'm doing a pillowcase dress even on the 24th of July and I"m excited to see my church getting involved.  I sent a video to Rachel and I hope she can post it here.  I'll upload pics when the event arrives.

My husband, Robert started victory gardens throughout Uganda teaching people to feed themselves, sell vegetables and form co-ops.

We had the opportunity to visit the “demonstration gardens” in the area of Tororo, Uganda. I brought along dresses made by my friends at Sunshine Acres where we held our first Dress a Girl Camp in Mesa, Arizona.

I was hoping to see some girls who needed dresses at the gardens and was not disappointed. The people of the village lined the girls up and we dressed them in CUTE pillowcase dresses.

The village pastor was on hand and marveled at what we were doing. He said, “NEVER has anyone come to this village and done such a thing! Please come back again.”

At the next garden we found more girls and were happy to give them dresses too.

The next day the pastor of that village saw me and said,: “The girls all showed up at church today looking so smart in their new dresses and the other girls were hoping you would surprise them and show up with more dresses.”

Although we have distributed 910 dresses so far this trip and have over 900 more dresses on the way—there are never enough! Please keep making dresses and dressing girls around the world!

Visit the photo gallery and see the girls in their beautiful dresses 8)

Thank you for those of you who participated in tonight’s call.

Lisa gave an update on the sponsored women. She talked about Rukia who is a widow whose husband died of HIV/AIDS but not before infecting her. His family chased her and her three sons away from their home and then tried to poison the boys when she sent them back. She is now in the Women’s Sponsorship program and has gone from defeated and wounded to a great businesswoman. She oversees 20 men and women in buying and selling charcoal for cooking. For $36 a month you can provide a woman the same hope and success Rukia is experiencing. To find out more write to Lisa. lisa@h4wi.org

When our team is in Uganda we will be meeting with the sponsored women and hearing their success stories and celebrating their becoming businesswomen.

To date Dress a Girl Around the world has sent out 3, 991 dresses (that is what our records show—there probably are more that we don’t know about) Today we shipped 100 more to the Appalachians of Kentucky and 125 to Taylor who will be distributing them in Lima, Peru.

That number will jump to over 5000 because our Hope 4 Kids International team will be carrying well over 1000 dresses to Uganda in July. Thank you for making this possible!!

Our team in Trujillo Peru just distributed around 230 dresses. You can see a few pictures on the Dress a Girl photo gallery.

Rachel hosted our first Dress a Girl Around the World Camp at a local children’s home last week. Five girls attended and three volunteers—it was a great time. Some of the girls had not sewn before and by the end of the week were doing great. They completed 58 dresses in four days and on the fifth day I told them to raid the fabric closets and make anything they wanted. Most made blankets.

I made Dress a Girl booklets for each girl with journal pages ( they took time to journal each day), patterns, Dress a Girl crossword puzzles and word searches. We took lots of pictures and I made a DVD for each girl. We will have a reunion in August and I’ll show them pictures of the girls in Uganda receiving their dresses.

Donna—has started two sewing groups in Illinois—one is in a senior community. The group gave dresses to Donna’s nephew to take to Sri Lanka and are making dresses to send to Haiti with a Haitian born woman who is going on a mission trip to Haiti. Donna introduced us to her nephew.

Shawn who took 168 dresses to Sri Lanka. The dresses were from Donna’s senior group and St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Valley, Nebraska. Shawn was in Sri Lanka for three weeks holding pastor’s conferences and doing mission work. He distributed our dresses in two locations. One was in a neighborhood affected by the tsunami of 2005. It is still in devastation and the church is held on a cement slab where a house had been. The other location was a refugee camp where a year ago over one million people gathered at the end of a thirty-year war. They are still living in tents and it took some persuading to allow the team to distribute dresses. Finally they were allowed to set up outside of camp and arranged the dresses on tables by sizes. When it was announced to a portion of the camp 100’s of girls came wanting to replace their dirty and worn dresses for a brand new one. It didn’t take long for the dresses to run out.

Thank you Shawn for being willing to take dresses to these girls and we pray that next year the team will be able to take hundreds to the precious girls who need them so desperately.

Sidney is sending 53 dresses and six cans of Kid’s Now Reliv powder with her son’s friend who is going with De Paul University to Honduras. Emily, from this same university took dresses to Honduras last year so we are excited that it is continuing.

Sidney’s church also had a sew fest with fourteen women! Her neighbor makes prayer dolls and actually knits clothing for them!! She will be sending 100 to our friend Taylor to distribute in Peru.

Wendy is excited that Reliv donated about $5000 worth of product to Hope 4 Women to be carried to Uganda and used to nourish some of the leaders there. Wendy is also taking a mission character program to Uganda called anti-virus which is aimed at the youth. She was very successful in getting Mission Character off the ground last summer and now this year some of those leaders will be leading the anti-virus program.

Bev who is a winter visitor to Arizona found out about the Dress a girl program from her friend who was in a thrift store and asked a woman why she was buying so many pillowcases. The lady went to her car and brought back information about Dress a girl and when Bev’s friend shared it with her Bev started making dresses and when she returned to Michigan she introduced it to friends there and has two groups—one in Michigan and one in Indiana!

Mae wanted to know if we had a pattern for “Catherine’s Design”. Catherine is from Uganda and wanted to be a part of making dresses so she made up her own design and started dressing girls in Uganda. We found a similar pattern by Simplicity. Pattern #5234.

Karen will be going to Uganda with us and is trying to carry 350 dresses!!!

Nancie is already planning her trip to Uganda in November. She will be taking dresses, pillowcases and supplies and thread! She may have to enlist other team members to help her to carry it all.

Rachel talked about local outreaches and giving hygiene packets to a local community center that reaches out to the homeless. Hope 4 women provided hygiene packets and included tubes of lipstick for the women. We also included a letter to the center explaining why we give lipstick to the homeless. You can read the article by visiting my blog http://www.racheleggumcinader.blogspot.com We continue to give bottles of water to the homeless as this is a dangerous time for them to be out in the heat.

Wendy ended in prayer.

Thank you everyone for being here. Next month’s call will be held on July 22nd.

One of our great promoters of Dress a Girl Around the World is Carolyn Griebe of Loveland, CO.  Here is a link to an article in her local paper about what she is doing and promoting our cause. Thank you Carolyn

http://www.reporterherald.com/features/Feature-Story.asp?section=Focus&ID=28428

     Who doesn't love a good grage sale treasure? I know I do. I've found some pretty interesting items at garage sales. Last weekend, though, my garage sale excursions were directed to bedding items-- more specifically, pillow cases. I only went to two garage sales, and I was able to find three pillow cases for a grand total of $1! Of course, there were a few I passed by because of shabbiness and a generally unappealing look, but I was delighted to find that I can make pillowcase dresses for under a a dollar-fifty (I have yet to find bias tape at a yard sale). This is compared to new pillow cases that are $3-$7 at Wal-Mart.