Heading Home!

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm sitting at the airport in Nairobi waiting to board my flight to London. The Mwiti family dropped me off and I can't begin to tell you how wonderful the last few days at their beautiful home has been for me. Their lovely house is peaceful and serene, and the grounds are amazing. They have planted so much of God's creation, and their large garden blesses their table and many of their friends' as well. It has been the perfect place for rest and relaxation, and Gladys and Gershon, I'm so grateful for your generous hospitality.

The last few days I have seen the extremes of Nairobi, from the lovely and gracious Country Club, built in 1912 by the British, where Donna and Larry Donahoo took me to a delicious lunch, to the slums of Mathare, where I met the most amazing CTK pastors and saw their "mission field". 80% of those living in Nairobi live in one of the slums.

I leave here very excited to be home again, to see my house and sleep in my bed. I have missed all of you, and can't wait to see you again.
I have been so blessed to have so many caring people taking this journey with me. Your emails, messages and notes have been such a comfort for me, and I appreciated each and every one of them. Thanks too for all of you who gave to make this trip possible. Your gifts were not wasted.

I will be seeing you real soon. With love and a big hug to each of you, Kitty

The Slums of Nairobi

Pastors Austin, Denise and Denise have been called to serve the people in this area of Nairobi.

Christ the King Church in Nairobi

I was honored to meet three young pastors from CTK here in Nairobi. Austin Oyula (far right), Denise Oduor (middle) and Denise Onyango (left) are men with a heart and mission for the poorest of the poor, here. Check out the parking in front of the CTK Church.

Last days at the Quilting Cottage

Dear Friends and Family,

Well, the last few days of my stay with the Mashaka women has come, and I have many mixed feelings about leaving. The hardest thing will be leaving these strong, courageous women whom I have come to love and respect so much. They are truly my "quilting sisters" and although they will be many miles away from me, and we will be leading very different lives, they will continue to be in my prayers, and never far from my thoughts and always in my heart.

Leaving the Nteere Guest House, where I have lived with Rose and Gerald, will also be difficult. They have have been my family here, and cared for me like one of their own. They have looked after my health and well being, my safety and security, and provided all I have needed or wanted while I was here. I am so grateful there was such a wonderful place to stay while I was here working. Their children, Denis and Hildah were also so helpful to this "non-computer-genius", and I'm so thankful they were around to sort things out for me.

I also want to thank Oasis Africa for having the vision to do this quilting project. Gladys, your dream has become a reality, and with God's blessing, will continue to grow. The women you chose were the right ones to begin the program, and they will continue to move ahead with Judy. They love what they're doing, and will find a way to continue given half a chance.

As I leave this beautiful area of Kenya, I am noticing that big changes are coming. All last week there were crews in the area cutting down the trees alongside the dirt roads leading out to the Mashaka Children's' Center and the Quilting Cottage. This week they have been stringing the wires for ELECTRICITY! What a huge change this will make in the lives of the local residents. And soon the school and the building where we quilt will have electricity too! No more heating irons over the cook's fire, and eventually, we might even have some electric sewing machines.......wouldn't that be wonderful! I can feel our dream growing!

As you can see from the pictures, the women have been very busy all week, trying to get quilts finished up so I can bring them home with me to sell. Please keep these precious women in your prayers. Their life is not easy, and you would not chose to trade places with any of them. But they are seeing the Quilting Cottage as part of God's Plan for their lives. Yesterday I spoke to them about Jeremiah 29:11...where God says He has a Plan for us, "for good and not for evil, to give us a future and a hope". I asked them to hold on to that promise....and with hope in their hearts, to work for that future. I believe they will do just that, and with God's help, be successful.

Thank you all for your support of me during this mission. I can not tell you how much your prayers and emails have meant. It was so amazing to know that so many were behind this effort, and working for it's success. To God be the Glory!

Love and a big hug to each of you!
Kitty

So Proud!

The women have learned so much in six weeks! Look how proud they are of their work.

Many Blessings

Prayers of blessing cover each quilt.

Flying Geese

The women begged to learn "Flying Geese" and loved it. They will be making many of these, no doubt.

Final Week at the Quilting Cottage

Take a look at all of the beautiful work being completed in Kitty's final week in Mashaka.

Busy week with a good ending!

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day at the Quilting Cottage. One of our women, Doris Kinanu, had given birth overnight, and had a new baby boy. Both mother and baby were doing fine and already home from the hospital. I knew Doris was pregnant, but never would have guessed she was close to delivery. She looked maybe 5 months along, but I guess with the poor diet here, it's not surprising she was so small, and this is her third child.

We worked all day on the projects we'd started this week; hand quilting the first group quilt (done out to the border), putting bindings on our small wall quilts, and piecing another couple of tops, to be quilted next week.

Near quitting time, a small boy came running from Mashaka to tell Dorothy that a thief was breaking into her house, and she left running. We immediately stopped what we were doing, and said a prayer that God would protect Dorothy and her family, and surround her home with angels of protection. I went home not knowing how things turned out, but saying a prayer for the thief too, since here the punishment can be death. This morning I got the BEST news. Many people had come to help and they had caught the thief. He was looking for food. He said he was so sorry and begged for forgiveness...........AND THEY FORGAVE HIM! Here, these people who have almost less than nothing, were able to find within themselves COMPASSION for a fellow man. Maybe it was because they too understood desperation and hunger. How we thanked God this morning!!!! My respect for these people of Mashaka only grows.

Thanks to all of you for your continued prayers and support. From where I sit, we had two miracles yesterday.....a birthing and a forgiving, or maybe it's the miracle of "new life" from two different perspectives. Whatever it was, it sure put a smile on my face and joy in my heart. Praise God!

Love and a big hug,
Kitty

Wish you were here!

How I wish each of you could have been with us at the Quilting Cottage today. So much activity going on! It was a real "bee hive".

There are about 10 women who have already passed the 1/4" test on the Singer machines, so each one of them was paired with a woman who hadn't done that yet. Not only does this get them to work together, but it also helps them learn teaching skills, which they will need when they become trainers.

Then those who weren't involved with that, began hand stitching the final border to our first "group quilt". The rest of the women came over to the cutting table and we cut squares for our next quilt, each woman taking a turn with the cutting. We pulled out some of the wonderful Kaffe Fassett fabrics for this new quilt. I wanted to show them how even simple squares of beautiful fabrics, can make a stunning quilt. By tea time we had our new quilt up on the design wall.

After tea, I showed them how to press the long binding we had made Friday, and get it ready to sew onto our hand quilted Keith Mallett pieces. Three ladies got to MACHINE sew the binding to their quilt. What a joy to to spend 5 minutes sewing on a binding by machine rather than spend all day doing it by hand.....and getting sore fingers in the process. Thank God for our Singers machines!

Before we left for the day, Rose had used the Singer to string together the blocks of the quilt on our design wall. What she did in a half hour, would have taken us days by hand. Tomorrow we'll do the horizontal seams in each section, and maybe even get the three sections sewn together. The women were so delighted to see how much faster everything was progressing now that we had sewing machines.

Thanks for all your prayers for the success of the quilting project. I can feel God with us each and every day, and He is blessing these precious women. We are so grateful for each and every one of you out there supporting our efforts.

God Bless You!

Love and a big hug,
Kitty

4 patches at last!

I am happy to finally be able to write an update on what's happening at the Mashaka Quilting Cottage. We have been struggling for some time with unreliable sewing machines which forced us to do all our sewing by hand. However, while we waited for the issue to be resolved, we spent the time practicing our hand sewing and doing some hand quilting. The results are pretty amazing. Several of the ladies are wonderful seamstresses and have fine, even stitches. The others are improving with each project we do.


Last Saturday we had a lovely visit from Dr. Gershon Mwiti from Oasis Africa. He and three friends came to see how things were getting on at the Quilting Cottage. I think he was pleased with the progress he saw, and spent some time inspecting the work that had been done. The women were very happy he had come, and put on quite a show of singing and dancing while he was there. They are very grateful to Oasis Africa for having the vision for this project, and working so hard to get it going.

By Monday, all the women had completed their Keith Mallett project, but we decided to wait to put the bindings on until we had some machines. Sewing bindings on by hand is very hard on the fingers. Sewing them to the quilted piece by machine is so much better, and then we can turn them to the back, and finish them by hand, which is not difficult.

The next thing I had wanted to teach them was how to make 4-patches, but without machines, I chose to teach them the half-square triangle instead, since the piecing of that by hand or machine is much the same. After each woman had completed her two half square triangles, we put up a design wall and "played" with the blocks. I showed them how to make a half dozen different patterns using that one simple block, and then we voted to see which of those patterns they wanted to choose for their first "group" quilt. They chose to do a straight set of a square-in-a-square, alternating light and dark squares. We got all the blocks made, and up on the design wall. The women were SO PROUD of themselves. They loved seeing all the different ways they could use the same block.

Today, since our machines were back from being repaired, we began the morning with more training. Several of the women are still having trouble with the treadle, but a couple were even able to follow the tape on the machine and produce a 1/4" seam. I quickly cut some strips of fabric and had then run a seam down the length. Then after tea, I showed them how to press the seams to the dark fabric, and how to layer the two strip sets, light to dark and dark to light, cross cut, and then back to the sewing machine to sew. Presto, 4-patches!!! They were amazed at how many you could do in just a few minutes. This gave all the women added incentive to learn to operate the sewing machine. And so we spent the remainder of the day, practicing, and more practicing. We are hoping to have our new Singer machine by this weekend.

I cannot tell you what a joy it is to work with these women. They are so excited each day to learn something new, and see how it fits with what they have learned already. They are beginning to see the many possibilities for design, and many are making little sketches in their notebooks. Anything I put on the board, they are sure to copy too. I have started a list of Quilt Patterns, and each day I add the new block we have learned. I wonder how long their list will be by the time I leave?

Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers and emails. It's so nice each day to hear from so many of you either by email, or on FBI. I so appreciate all the encouragement and strength you send my way.

Love and a big hug for each of you,
Kitty

Basting

The women are working on their skills.

A Prayer of Blessing

The women say a prayer of blessing over their quilts for the person who will receive it.

Ruth

Ruth blesses her quilt before basting. Recently, Ruth was hospitalized with two of her children. One of her little twins died. During this time, her husband deserted the family, and never even returned for the child's funeral.

Rose...a fine quilter

Rose, getting ready to do her basting. She is one of our finest quilters. She was really pleased today when I told her that her stitches were better than mine.

Lydia...a natural leader

Lydia is not only an excellent seamstress, but she a natural leader for the group. She is always the first to step in and do anything that needs doing. She had a quiet strength. Her husband was the only one in the family pictures.

What could be better than a good day at the Quilting Cottage? I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoy working with the women of Mashaka. They come into the cottage every morning neat and clean and with big smiles on their faces. You can just tell they're really glad to be there. Today we began by basting our project to get it ready for hand quilting. There were not enough tables for everyone to tape down their project at the same time, so those who couldn't find room to baste, were the first ones to be working with Jeffrey on the sewing machines. The morning just flew by, with everyone so busy, they didn't even want to stop at tea time. Half of the women completed their basting, and the other half got their project taped to the table so they will be ready to begin tomorrow. Those who finished today, will work with Jeffrey on the machines tomorrow. Margie, I taught them to use your "spoon trick" when basting, and they all say "Thank you, Margie!"