Thursday, July 13, 2006
Card Making and Beautiful Quilt to Raffle
This is a time of wonderful blessings and preparation for the August trip back to Kenya to visit the Happy Children's Centre AIDS orphanage in Malindi. Over 30 people are busily making beautiful cards with personal notes to the orphans and people have thanked me for the opportunity to participate in this way. It moves me deeply to think of people who don't know these children taking time to make the orphans a card and send them a message of hope and encouragement. And creating the artwork for the cards is not only is a gift to the orphans but it is a way for the senders to bloom and explore their own creativity as well. I can hardly wait to see the faces of the H.C.C. orphans as each name is read out and they each receive their special card/treasure. Wow! And as I pass the names of these children out to card makers, I think about their stories, their young lives and how much tragedy they have already endured. It personalizes this horrible pandemic and makes me even more determined to spend time with as many of the children individually as I can.
Yesterday at the Forest Grove Farmer's Market I sold more raffle tickets for Annie Papworth's gorgeous quilt. She made this quilt having heard from Coley the story of the H.C.C. orphans creating paintings last year of their imagined new building. I've got the quilt with its wonderful, whimsical houses which are replicas of the children's paintings, but I still have not met Annie. People are drawn to the quilt and love the color and design, and it is easy to sell tickets for it. When they learn about the story and learn that the funds will go to help complete the building, they are very happy to buy several raffle tickets, sometimes many! Some just want to buy tickets without their own name so that the H.C.C. orphans have a chance to win the quilt and that I can take it back with me to Kenya. Right now there are about 60 tickets in the jar that say "For the H.C.C. Orphans" so there is a chance that the H.C.C. orphans will see it themselves!
We are gearing up for the July 22nd fundraising event at Coley's home and I know that will be a lot of fun for everyone. It is great to have people helping with this event and many of them are folks who have come into my life just recently. I feel very much like there is a Divine Hand involved with these preparations and when I am overwhelmed at times with the details, I just try to remember that it will all work out because it is blessed. I also feel extremely lucky to be part of this process and to have the folks showing up to help me just when I need them most.
Yesterday at the Forest Grove Farmer's Market I sold more raffle tickets for Annie Papworth's gorgeous quilt. She made this quilt having heard from Coley the story of the H.C.C. orphans creating paintings last year of their imagined new building. I've got the quilt with its wonderful, whimsical houses which are replicas of the children's paintings, but I still have not met Annie. People are drawn to the quilt and love the color and design, and it is easy to sell tickets for it. When they learn about the story and learn that the funds will go to help complete the building, they are very happy to buy several raffle tickets, sometimes many! Some just want to buy tickets without their own name so that the H.C.C. orphans have a chance to win the quilt and that I can take it back with me to Kenya. Right now there are about 60 tickets in the jar that say "For the H.C.C. Orphans" so there is a chance that the H.C.C. orphans will see it themselves!
We are gearing up for the July 22nd fundraising event at Coley's home and I know that will be a lot of fun for everyone. It is great to have people helping with this event and many of them are folks who have come into my life just recently. I feel very much like there is a Divine Hand involved with these preparations and when I am overwhelmed at times with the details, I just try to remember that it will all work out because it is blessed. I also feel extremely lucky to be part of this process and to have the folks showing up to help me just when I need them most.
# posted by Kirsten's Updates about the H.C.C. in Kenya @ 3:42 PM 
