Our New Friends and a New Venture

Last July we welcomed our new friends, an Afghani refugee family, to America. The past 7 months have been one of the greatest blessings of our life. It has been amazing to get to know them and recently we have begun work on a project to help this family to use their skills and talents to become self-reliant.

Turning lemons into lemonade. When their power was shut off for several days in October because of a mix up with their bills we spent a fun evening eating donuts by lantern light. 

At Christmas time we went with our volunteer group and our family downtown to see the lights at Temple Square.

As we were leaving Temple Square Mike explained to them that the buildings we'd visited, the temple and the tabernacle, were built by refugees many years ago when they settled here.

With no men to help provide for this large family, we knew it would be a more difficult challenge for them to support their family. While the oldest daughter of the family was able to get a part time job at Walmart, the mother was not having any luck finding employment because her English was progressing so slowly. As we came to know the family more, we learned that the mother and her oldest daughters are highly skilled seamstresses. The mother was so skilled she could make a dress from just looking at a picture and getting some measurements. When we discovered this - Mike hatched an idea.

One thing we've learned over the course of Jessie's high school experience is how hard it can be to find suitable dresses for dances. Especially if you want something unique and/or something modest. What if we found a way to link her skill with the demand for dresses that we see. We wondered if it could work. We posed the idea to the family, who enthusiastically agreed. We wondered how they would be able to acquire the quality machines that they would need if they were to really make this work. We wondered how best to structure our venture. As we worked these things through in our minds and made it a matter of prayer,  things began coming together, the solutions presented themselves and the way opened up.

Our first step was to ask them to make a dress for Jessie, and the daughter of some friends who were willing to join us in the venture. The only machine they had to make the dresses was one from Costco that was generously gifted by my old friend, Wendy. Not a professional machine, but in the hands of a master...

Here they are adjusting the sleeve on the dress they made for our friends' daughter

Part way through their work on Jessie's dress an Afghani man, a neighbor and friend, took it upon himself to purchase a professional grade machine for them with the understanding that they would just pay him back as they were able, without any time frame attached. He has become one of our best resources, showing up to translate complex ideas, facilitating, researching and helping us stay connected. A humble, quiet man - here in the U.S. because he was an aid to American troops in  Afghanistan.

Here they are at work on their new beautiful Juki machine

With those first few dresses under our belt we put the word out that our refugee friends were making dresses and the first real orders came in. We're still working out our process and streamlining as best we can for now, but I think we're onto something. We have felt guided every step of the way.

We are calling our new venture, "Panah" - which means "refuge" in Dahri (their language). We hope to move things forward enough to help employ other refugee women, all here without husbands, to be able to support their families.

Our love for them grows. I jokingly call the mother my little sister, because she is a year younger than me, but she is my elder in terms of experience and strength.  

I'll keep you posted.

Summertime at Lightspeed

Literally, if you blink around here you might miss an entire season. So, for the record:

* This year the little boys and I decided that we would make Fourth of July shirts. Sully created this design (which of course Abner wanted to duplicate once he saw Sully doing it). I thought they turned out nicely.

* Stay-cationing ... Seven Peaks, long-boarding Provo Canyon, Mountain West Burrito

Noble snuggling up to his giant burrito.

 * Jess had an impromptu photo-shoot with Dolli.  Here's one of the pics. Pretty girls.

* Girls camp 2016 - JR Property. 

The A-Team. Backpacking with the 4th years. 

The Bishop captured this sweet moment with Grace and her posse on their sunrise hike.

*While the girls were away at girls camp Sully was introduced to the dusty world of Cub Scout Camp. In the days leading up to it he could hardly contain his excitement. He was in heaven with all the Cub Scout pomp and circumstance, the silly skits, the adventure...This picture says it all.

* Mike and I celebrated 19 years of marriage. Dinner at Log Haven and a quiet walk in the woods...

*Jess and her homie, Cassie took their first solo-road trip (also Cassie's Senior trip) to St. George last week. They weren't entirely on their own since they stayed with Mike's parents. They had a packed itinerary: swimming, a show at Tuacahn, shopping, hiking in Zion and a visit to the temple. 

* Meanwhile... Noble spent an eventful week in Lake Powell with the varsity scouts. Lots of sun, water, food, fishing, a trip to the emergency room in Price (not Noble), tire damage, and food poisoning (also not Noble, thankfully). Noble came home with a torqued left knee (excusing him from two weeks of XC workouts - in lieu of real running, he was prescribed "aqua-jogging" at the rec center pool) but with plenty of great memories. He'd go back in a heart beat.

* Reno-with-Roy has picked back up again after a brief hiatus (i.e., all our camps and Roy's camps).

They poured the concrete foundation for the spiral staircase which was installed earlier this week...without a handrail on the top landing - (what the??!). Apparently they have to do it that way so they can measure after the staircase is installed. Then they manufacture the railing. In the meantime I have to keep an army of neighborhood children off this shiny new death trap. It should be completed Monday. Wish us luck for a safe weekend. 

* We finally made it official -  Noble's Eagle Scout Court of Honor was held this past Sunday.

I wish I had taken the time to get some better pictures of Noble with family members and his leaders. Thanks to Mike's dad for getting some and sharing them with us.

Grandma came sporting her own boys' Eagle Scout pins.

One of the best parts of the Court of Honor was the color guard - all brothers of the Eagle candidates. There were two older, already Eagle Scout brothers who directed, two scout age brothers (including Tillman), and two Cub Scout age brothers, which including a very earnest and excited Sully, who prayed the night before that he would do well helping with the color guard especially because he was just 8 years old. He took his duty seriously. I wish that we had taken a good picture of the group of brothers together. By the way, Sully only bumped into the wall and ceiling a few times, and nearly missed dragging the flag of Utah through the food on the table on his way out. But as people moved to help him,  he refused, determined to do it on his own. It was awesome!

* For a few years I have felt drawn to do something to help with refugees, but I didn't know what to do. When I watched the Women's Session of LDS General Conference this past April, I felt that my prompting was validated and now I had a direction in which to go. We signed up a few months ago through Catholic Community Services to volunteer with newly arrived refugee families. We attended the meetings, went through the background checks and recently we were assigned, with other members of our group. to an Afghani family with a mom, grandma and 5 kids. They arrived last week. Already this has been an awesome experience, especially for the kids. When it was time to meet them at the airport I wasn't sure if I should bring all of our kids, but decided to bring them (all but Abner). I was so glad that I did. When the family, speaking no English, stood there shaking our hands a little nervously, it was the sight of our children that put them at ease. They smiled, walked up to each of them and kissed their cheeks. Grace said it was the coolest experience ever. We are assigned to help out for up to two years with this family. I'll keep you updated on the process.

Life is good.