Little Dresses for Africa

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:36:01 +0000

Good Morning Rachel,

I am going to the post office this morning to mail 96 dresses from Emmanuel Baptist Church. We met on a very muggy day for the desert and made the dresses. We will have another sewing day in October. This was an opportunity not only for the ladies of our church but as an outreach to invite unchurched friends to participate. We had a wonderful day and we were all happy to be a part of something bigger than we could imagine. We prayed for each little girl who would receive a dress.

This was a privilege to be apart of. Thank you so very much for all you do for the children in Africa. God Bless you and your ministry.

Sincerely,

Janie

Tucson, AZ

admin — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:29:06 +0000

Dear Rachel,
I was so worried about reaching the goal I had set for myself for sewing for Little Dresses for Africa, But my goal of 500 began May 10th, prayers and strangers all came together and I shipped my summer project. So soon you shall receive 13 boxes, 659 dresses, 3 skirts, and 48 boy shorts, plus pockets with prayers and a hundred little dolls. It was so heart warming for me to be a part of helping so many children, I have already began my ‘winter’ stash, have 24 finished and about 200 started, and the winter is long so will be sure and have a bigger 2011 goal, this goal is including a fund raiser to get them all the way to Africa! You have my guarantee of prayers and God’s Angels watching over you and others on your journey. Please give some of those children a hug a prayer, and a kiss in my name. Thank You Rachel, some day I hope to meet you.
Sincerely with Love and Praise in God’s name,
Tracie Rief

Montrose, Colorado

New Sizing for Shipping. Please read!

admin — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:04:53 +0000

Dear Precious Supporters of Little Dresses for Africa,

First of all, you blow we away! Your dedication to these children is to be commended. It just humbles me and everyone that sees what you do! A simple personal goal to take 1000 dresses to the Village of Ntcheu has turned into a machine of love that keeps rolling and rolling and picking up steam! In the last two weeks we have received over 3400 dresses! In two weeks!

As many of you know, I have some volunteers that come to my house to unpack, size and ready these dresses and shorts for shipping with mission teams, by way of the Postal Service and in duffle bags for the team leaving in 3 weeks. The magnitude of this project is almost overwhelming, until you remember that God has blessed this project and he will see us through. It is by faith that we press forward.

As we hear back from the different countries that are receiving them, it is obvious to us that we are ready to refine our efforts. Most of you are sending them already packaged and trust me, that is a HUGE help. Also many of you are sending checks from your churches or personally to help with shippnig costs…again, huge help! Now, it is time to move to the next step. We used to package them individually until we found out from West Africa that it just adds to their problem in distributing them. Now we put several in a bag according to size. Not a bad idea for passing them out but since our sizes are not their sizes, we have decided to go to the next step: From now on the sizing can me marked in the following way:

Small- sizes 2, 3 and 4

Medium- sizes 5,6 and 7

Large- sizes 8,9 and 10

Xtra Large- above size 11

Boys shorts or t-shirts

If you want to just put a S, M, L or XL on the ziploc bags it will be incredibly easier for us to get them in the boxes to go out to the kids. We are so grateful for your help and hope you don’t think I”m getting too picky. In order to be able to keep this project going, I just have to get more efficient. Other changes will be coming soon I’m sure as we streamline for efficiency. As some of you know, I’m still working full time and we have a small team of volunteers to get this completed. On behalf of all of them, we thank you so much.

As always, please put your name and address inside the box so we can know who these gifts come from. Thank you so much for your help. Please remember to mark your calendars for our BIG fund raiser Dinner Dance and Live Auction, “Changing Lives Here and Across the Ocean”, Saturday, November 13, 2010 in Wyandotte, MI. Donations of quilts, handmade jewelry, items that you all make, are really needed to make this happen. Thank you all SOOOOOOOOO much. Love you, Rachel

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:13:14 +0000

These are three of the pillowcase dresses that Charlotte made, but another lady embroidered!!!

Aren’t they beautiful?!!

Charlotte gave my mother in law 16 more “Little Dresses”, I have several here waiting for someone to be able to take the to Africa!!

I wanted to share the embroidered ones with you.

Notice also that Charlotte puts lace on the pockets and collar. She adds a special touch to the dresses.

God bless all in this endeavor.

Zikomo.

Phyllis

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:58:35 +0000

Our WMU group is making dress.We have 130 already to package and ship next week. It has truly been a blessing for me and my friend.We have prayed over each dress as we sewed and now the whole church is going to pray over them before we ship. We entered the dresses in a mission project. We have a class to teach in 2 weeks.When people hear about this project they immediately want to help in some way. The Lord has really blessed us by making these dresses. We intend for it to be an ongoing project for us. I noticed you are going to Africia Sept. 17th. We hope to get our dresses to you before then. We are sending a letter and a picture with our dresses. I am so thankful to have seem this project on my favorite sewing show on TV.Sewing with Nancy. I watch each sat. morning
Thanks,

Bobbie D & Kitty C

Latta, SC