A Closing Chapter

About a year ago I started turning my new knitters skills into Stitch Africa. You can read one of my initial posts on it here. I was driven by the idea that what little I had could make a big difference to someone else. Family and friends bought my booties, and I was always super excited when someone I didn't know made contact and purchased from me!

Whenever I sold a pair of booties I made another pair just the same to donate to a child in Africa. Earlier this year I adjusted my plan by bringing the prices lower (in the hopes to attract more buyers) and setting aside a set amount for a fund to be spent on a Church over there.

I made contact with Pastor Rock from Bwera, Western Uganda. He's a young pastor with a wife named Deborah and 2 children, aged 5 and 2. Pastor Rock sends me weekly emails telling me about their church services and what they have been doing in their community.

They have 2 services on a Sunday and attract 500 people from all over their region. Rock's emails are always encouraging for me, and I can see that Gods work is being done in Uganda. He tells me the need is great but they do what they can to try and meet it. Last week they had 6 beds built and bought mattresses to give to 6 children who go to their church programs. He sent me a photo and when I saw it I cried. I forget that some people don't have beds. 

I try and encourage Pastor Rock with every reply email I send, but mostly he is the greatest encourager to me. His emails are inspiring and uplifting and remind me of the value of perseverance and faith, something he has a lot of.

As you know, the due date of our Baby Girl is quickly approaching (4 weeks exactly today!!) and I have made the decision to close this chapter of Stitch Africa. So far in the short time I have achieved what I set out to do. In the future I hope to be able to offer more to the people of Africa.

So, I have a whole lot of booties to send them (did you know some children are sent home from the hospital (if they manage to be born in a hospital) without clothes and wrapped in paper??!!) and also through sales I have some money to put towards a gift to send to Pastor Rock so that he can continue to be a blessing in their community.

I plan on sending...

6x single sheets to accompany their beds they gave out
*Lined exercise books
*Felt tip pens
*Small pencil cases
Childrens educational counting, number and gospel books
Lots and lots of booties :)

*It would be great to have these as packages so they can be given to all the kids who go to their programs!

Please let me know if you have any other ideas for things that could go over and also let me know if you wish to contribute to this. Obviously, the more that contribute the better because it means the more we can add in :)

Stitch Africa will be finishing soon and this week on Facebook I will be having a sale on all of my current stock along with some other things I have been creating this week! Stay tuned for more details on this, and please email me on sophie@moo2.co.nz if you would like to donate anything to Pastor Rocks community :)

Much love and thank you for a great year! x