This past Saturday we were blessed to have a couple volunteers from Jericho Road Church come help out and hang out with our crafting group. We put Marissa to work right away teaching two Sudanese ladies how to knit. It looked and sounded like they had a lot of fun in the process. The other volunteer, Val, helped us out by taking some really great pictures. We'll be using the photos throughout the blog and to make some business cards to hand out at sales.
We were also really excited to have several new recruits come. Up to now, it's mostly been our little group from Nepal and one woman from Iraq. This week we had two from Sudan, and several from Burma join us. We're becoming quite the multicultural gathering. It's fun to see the group interact with us and with each other. Miream, our Iraqi lady, has seemed a bit isolated since she doesn't speak enough English to converse with anyone, and no one else speaks Chaldean or Arabic. But this week the Sudanese ladies (who also speak Arabic) were able to chat with her and have even offered to start giving her a ride on Saturday mornings since they live close by each other. Miream seemed really happy to have someone to talk to, and help her with translation.
We also took some pictures of our stock, eventually hoping to get to the point of selling online. The kids were excited to help model.
On Sunday a family from Sue's church graciously opened their home in Oak Park to have a "Crafts of the World" sale. They invited us to come set up a table. Sue and I put on our best sales-people faces and went. We found a very receptive audience. We didn't have to do much, as the quality of the scarves and pictures of the ladies who made them got everyone's attention. All told, we sold $460-worth of knitting and jewelry. What a blessing! Thank you Sacco family!
