Little Dresses for Africa

Every-other month our church, Koinonia House, does some type of outreach project.  In addition to helping us adults stay a little more outward focus, it's a great, hands-on way to teach the kids about being aware of the needs of others around them.  A few of the things we have done in the past included like serving a local elderly man in the area by doing some major yard clean-up and landscaping, and repair/re-painting of his fences etc., hosting neighborhood picnics, putting on a "Light the Night" event, and purchasing gifts and packaging boxes for Operation Christmas Child, to name a few.  Today we got together to make dresses.  That's right...a sewing project.  Now THAT was interesting (considering none of us consider ourselves to be seamstresses...)to say the least!  :)

I had read about the ministry Little Dresses for Africa on a blog, and followed the link to their website.  It seemed like such a great, and simple, way to help people in need.  We gathered up the supplies, and today we completed about a dozen dresses in a few hours, and have a few more in process.  It was so fun to see the cute dresses come together, and we put little tags in them that say "Handmade With Love".  (It never crossed my mind - til Kate pointed it out today - that the children receiving them very likely would be able to read them; so I'm just hoping whoever distributes them will tell them!) Here's some pictures of what we made today:

 

 

 

I really desire to continue to grow personally in the area of being outward focused and become more aware of the needs of people.  I'm thankful for ministries like Little Dresses for Africa that provide avenues to help people in parts of the world I may likely otherwise be unaware of.

These dresses were really pretty easy (once we figured out what we were doing!!) and if you can sew a seam at all, you should check out their website and maybe you could send a couple dresses to some little girls in Malawi too!  Check out the story that NBC Nightly News did on Little Dresses for Africa.  This would be a great project for a womens' group, a family, or even a Girl Scout troop!  Why not consider helping?

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