Church, community, and 3 boxes of groceries.

Recently I had a message from a friend – not a really close friend, but not just an acquaintance, certainly someone who I like a lot and intend to call more than I actually do… in any case, a few years ago at church we were making meals for people once a fortnight on a Wednesday morning. Either people from church who were sick, had new babies or were just having a hard time, or if anyone knew anyone from the community we’d make meals for them too. We made a meal for this friend when she was pregnant with her 2^nd child and studying. She wrote me this message and wrote some very special things about how she felt at the time, that she would “never forget the kindness and feeling of support when you showed up with dinner and bikkies for us”. It's amazing how the small things and the practical things make a big difference. She then asked for help for a friend who was struggling. A single mum with 3 kids who has “hit rock bottom emotionally and financially”.

I’m characteristically soft and tend to lean towards wanting to help and save everyone anyway… but this one really got to me. I think because I get quite upset when I hear about not just the physical and practical consequences of the bad stuff that goes down for so many people, but the emotional and spiritual toll it takes on them.

So I sent out a message to about 20 friends from church, I asked if they could buy 1 extra grocery item in their shop that week. I was picturing giving her a small to medium size box of treats. The kinds of things that just make life that little bit nicer – chocolate biscuits, shampoo, body wash, tea and coffee. When you’re really hard up it’s always a choice what you leave out, and with 3 kids I bet she was always at the end of the list when it came to doing the weekly groceries.

Not only did people respond, but they responded BIG time. Not everyone who I got in touch with was able to help, (and this is absolutely not about making anyone feel guilty or stink for not participating because I would never EVER want anyone to feel that way), but 10 people were able to help, and they bought entire bags of things. Blocks of chocolate, biscuits, juice, chippies, gift packs of lotions and shampoos, breakfast cereals, canned chicken, pasta, cash. It was just beautiful. I ended up with one huge box and 2 medium boxes.

When I went over to this woman’s house I had initially a bag with 2 meals and some baking, which she accepted incredibly gratefully. But when I bought in the first box she just stopped in her tracks and shook her head and said “No, no, I can’t accept this – I can’t!” I of course refused to listen, convinced her that there were many of us and that these things had been bought especially for her because we care, at which point she cried and put her head in her hands. I managed to remember to ask if I could give her a hug before I hugged her (always key to not looking like too much of a freak). I showed her a flyer which had our churches number on it, told her she could call if she needed more. She said she would when she “got her s**t together”.

Then she started talking about how she had been doing a parenting course recently, and they had discussed that when things were hard they were, in a way, that much harder because there is no sense of community anymore. That it was amazing how I had these friends and we could pull together to do this, to help someone and each other – but for her she was all alone, she had no one, and it was too hard.

I completely agree with her. In our middle class, first world lives we have gotten extremely accustomed to doing everything alone. We raise our children by ourselves, we don’t know our neighbours very well anymore, there’s not even as much lending and borrowing going on as perhaps there would have been 30 years ago. We have organizations like Plunket and we have the government, people that are trying hard to look out for those on the margins but at the same time telling them to “Get a real job” and that if they budget effectively they can live perfectly well on a benefit. There’s only so much those organizations can do.
The government can’t be your friend. Plunket can’t come over and have a cup of tea with you while you pour your heart out. None of these places can give us the long-term, constant support that you need when life throws the worst it’s got at you – and that happens to all of us.

This is where I believe in the Church. Not just my particular church, the one I attend in Wanganui with the people I care for and that care for me – but the Church as a body, as God’s bride, as a whole – worldwide, every denomination. The Church is the community that the world (as a generalisation – some of you may live in wonderful, supportive neighbourhoods) lacks. The lovely lady that I had the privelege to help had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Luckily she had one supportive friend who knew she was in over her head, and she knew me, and knew we would help. Of everything that happened in this experience it is that fact that most warms my heart. She KNEW the church would help. She’s not a Christian. She’s not churchy. I’ve never invited her to anything. Yet she knew we would help. Thank you, God.

After all the years I spent singing, playing music, performing, leading, doing items and doing all other manner of creative stuff in churches it is the year of cooking meals in the kitchen with a group of friends that has taught me the most about myself, about Church, about community and about how to show love to a hurting world.

Let’s not get so caught up in the doing of a church “service” and the programs and activities that we run, that we miss our chance to be the hands and feet of a God who cares about the hungry, the poor, the hurting and the lonely.
xx Sarah

Orphans, Bibs and Mozambique

I'm either a really nice person or a really foolish one. I vacillate between the two depending on how tired I am and who has been either telling me off or encouraging me! In any case, I am in one of the busiest stages I've had in ages due to dozens of things that I really really want to do.
One of them is crafty and I thought I'd share my progress.
Next Saturday (as in one week from today) a team of people from my church are going to Mozambique to serve and help in an orphanage there with 300 children. I'd have loved to have been going myself but made the call that this is my time with my wee boy and breastfeeding is something I value, so I'm staying here. I'm SO excited for the team that will be going.
At the beginning of the year I was in a group of girls from church and we all set goals for the year, and I made one to do with my sewing. I love to make toy softies, but my kids aren't really that interested anymore - they have so many toys, to be honest, I just overload them when I make more. I knew there was an orphanage in the Phillippines that our church has a bit to do with and I made a goal to make some toys for the kids in that orphanage and send them over. Then later on when I clicked in my brain that our church is sending a team to an orphanage in Africa I decided I'd see if I could transfer my goal to helping there instead. I talked to Shirley, the team leader, about toys and she said they had stated that they didn't actually want toys (neither of us are entirely sure why) but I did also say that I had been making my own bibs and that maybe I could make some taggie blankies, if they would be more suitable, and long story short she asked them and they said YES they would love them. Which I was hugely excited about! How cool that I can do something they will actually need and use. However I'm down to the wire now and haven't made that many. I'm storming ahead though and will update you on my progress as the week goes on!
Here are some pictures:

Some bibs, all ready for their poppers. And then some more made from the CUTEST childrens curtain I found at Savemart:

I love the little teddy in the airplane! The smiling tree in my blog background is from the same fabric. And then my first go at making taggy blankies:

I splashed out at SewPretty and got some adorable woven ribbons for these:

So I'm hoping to be able to give Shirley 100 things! I may be being overly ambitious. But every time I think I should just quit and go clean my house, talk to my husband, have a shower, or eat... I think about a little African child who has never had anything beautiful of their own before... And I keep sewing.
xx Sarah
PS: The photos look cool because I used Instagram, on my iPhone. It is fun!

In the beginning...

So this is it. I've thought about blogging for a while now, but have been quite busy getting over myself and my tendency to people please so have put it off longer than I thought I would.
I love blogs. In the last 6 months I have discovered so much amazing writing online, and have been getting so inspired and so filled by these wonderful women (I mostly tend to read women!). I also have recently got involved with a magazine called Bella, for teen girls, and we are wanting to get a web/blog thing happening one day, so I'm sort of preparing myself for that too. I tend to preach and write to myself and others inside my head rather often, so it's about time that I did the bold thing and started to put some things down on paper (or screen?) instead.
A friend I greatly admire, Marion, writes a wonderful blog NZgirl and she recently made a series of statements about herself from what she's been learning on her journey. I thought I'd do a similar sort of thing, then you can decide whether you want to keep checking in here or if I'm just going to irritate you...
I'm Sarah. I'm married, I have 2 beautiful tiny tots and I live in a smallish town in New Zealand.

• I'm a bit floaty, or flighty - airy fairy? I'm creative and I like to ask questions and sometimes I don't answer them. Or I answer them with more questions. I like to question, I like to debate, I like to ponder.
• I'm a Christian. I love God, I love my church, I'm committed. I believe absolutely in the redemptive power of God and in his grace.
• I'm messy and disorganised. Administration rates pretty low in my list of priorities.
• I'm an arty creative type, I love music, interior design, gardens, fashion, illustration and books. I'll share my favourites here.
• I'm pretty passionate about parenting and about supporting mums in particular. I can talk for hours if someone is foolish enough to let me.
• I don't really know yet what I'm meant to "DO" with my life. I'm on a journey and still learning each day at a time who I am and what matters most to me.
• I'm people oriented and tend to do things because I care for the people involved, not because I care that much about the task or the job.

I think that's enough for now. Thanks for reading and I hope this will be an encouraging and inspiring thing for me and  you both.
xx Sarah