by Carol Stevens
One of the members of Ebenezer UMC in Suffolk VA saw an article from UM News Service about making dresses for girls around the world. The idea is that when a girl is dressed nicely and with a tag on the dress that says the church name and Dress a Girl, there is less chance that she will be abused. Since February 2024, 14 women from the church have been making dresses with a doll in the pocket to send to Tanzania. They have made 70 dresses and are going to continue to make more. They also have been making reusable sanitary pads. In mid-May, we will transport them to Eastern Pennsylvania, and then take the dresses to Tanzania.
The project began at the urging of Katherine Pearson, who has continued to coordinate the effort. One of the girls wrote a story about an American girl and her schoolmate friend from Africa and making dresses and dolls to send to Africa. We will send copies of the book with the dresses.
Doing these dresses has been a wonderful opportunity for our folks to have a connection with the Yatosha ministry in Tanzania, a ministry which has also been working with Deaf people in the conference. I feel like we are making progress to help our church to have a more international heart for ministry.
