The Haitian Bead Project by Terrie and Naomi

Friday afternoon, Debbie stopped at the school and asked if we could go meet with the women who work with The Haitian Bead Project - she had been trying to set up a time for us to do this and she had just found out that they were waiting for us, so we figured we had better get going!! Sometimes setting up a time to meet in Haiti becomes pretty tricky with not many people having access to phones and electricity. Gathering a group of people at a time when they don’t normally meet really depends on word of mouth and spreading the message, so when we heard they had gathered to meet us, we knew it was pretty special!

We first heard about the Haitian Bead Project through Debbie last year when we were starting to plan our family mission trip to Haiti. Debbie was friends with the founder of the organization. Dorina and her husband are missionaries from Fresno, California and along with their children, they live part of the year in Haiti and part of the year in Fresno. Dorina was seeing, first-hand, the need for work for the women of Pignon and the surrounding rural communities. She was able to begin this project with some very simple supplies yet creating some beautiful jewelry! She had seen beads made from colorful pieces of magazine pages and had also heard how these beads created into beautiful necklaces were beginning to make a sustainable income for women in Africa. She wanted to do something similar in Haiti. Because of her work as a missionary and travelling back and forth between California and Pignon, this gave her the perfect platform to begin this organization. The Haitian Bead Project was born and we are so excited to be working with them and to have had an opportunity to work with them! Dorina Gilmore’s (the U.S. coordinator) husband’s grandfather was the original missionary for the church, school and orphanage where the project is based. That has been the connection for her development of this ministry project in the U.S.. The school has all elementary grades and is a growing and thriving school in the middle of Pignon. The complex is a beautiful location and a little bit secluded with a beautiful courtyard area in the center. Back to our visit that day, we rushed to gather the duffle bag stuffed with donated supplies of flattened cardboard, Elmer’s glue, fishing line, scissors and seed beads. Debbie drove us to meet them, we were so excited! Conner came along too which was fun because he’s been very involved and has known and worked with us throughout the time we’ve been working with the project, so we were glad he was able to come as well! The “base-camp” for The Haitian Bead Project is this complex of elementary school, church and orphanage.

The women meet twice per week as a whole grouo for business meetings. Then, they make the jewelry at home! This, once we heard more about it, made complete sense! These women have young children at home to care for and if they were gone from home often to make the jewelry, it wouldn’t work for them as moms and caregivers. So, coming to meet twice per week for an hour or two and then making the jewelry at home really frees them up to create their work schedules around the needs of their families. What a great idea to do it this way! Having these twice per week meetings, though, allows the group to support one another, learn new techniques for making the jewelry, design new pieces, distribute supplies and offer support for all the women involved with the project.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a man who serves as local coordinator for the project. He took our heavy duffle bag filled with donations out of Debbie’s car and together we carried it to the classroom. As we entered the school-yard, the courtyard was quiet, clean and empty – kind of back off the busy street in downtown Pignon. We went to a second floor classroom and were shocked to walk into a classroom filled with colorful beaded jewelry spread over every school desk and table in the room with 30+ women lining the outside walls- the room was “packed full”.

It was OVERWHELMING and we couldn’t believe they were all there to meet US! They asked us if we could unload the donations first and the leaders immediately began distributing the cardboard amongst every woman in the room- WOW! We were really worried we wouldn’t have enough for each of the women to have a few pieces each, but there seemed to be just enough to share with everyone in the room! These throw-away cardboard boxes that we don’t think twice about provide a living wage to these women and their families and this allows them to create beautiful beads to make necklaces, bracelets, earrings and more! Something so insignificant to us can mean so much to someone else. They shared that the seed beads and other donations would be distributed fairly after we left or at a future meeting. We had been instructed not to buy in front of the women gathered- but look & admire their products. Debbie and the coordinator shared with us that the women need to experience the potential impact and resource that our interest and support for their project can have. Through our efforts in collecting supplies for their artwork and sharing their stories back in the U.S., doors can open for broadening their market base and hopefully create a sustainable project that can provide a living wage for each of the women involved with The Haitian Bead Project. The women were so kind and thankful that we would want to come and meet them in person and bring them supplies, but at the same time, very surprised by this as well. It’s still a new project and getting them to understand the outside connections to what they are doing is still a little harder to comprehend for them. The coordinator and Debbie did a great job of explaining some of this to them. The ins and outs of a new business in the states can be difficult to fully understand and the same thing was going on here! Just learning how to do this and make it viable for all the women is very necessary for the sustainability and the connections that are being made through meetings like this can help everyone in the long run! The women and coordinators wanted to pray with us before we left. During the prayer requests, the women did encourage us to develop potential markets for their jewelry and we promised them that we were. They were so thankful that we came and were so delighted that we would take the time to collect the supplies that we did and bring them all the way to Pignon just for them! It was such a great “full circle” experience we were able to have!

As we were leaving they were excited to look at the new supplies as well as understand our connection to the work they do and how we are wanting to partner with them to help each of them live a more comfortable life by fulfilling some of their goals whether that is to provide food for their families, build a home or even go to school in the future! The stories each of these women have and what has brought them to this project and what they’d like to do with the money they earn is just so simple and just for things we would take for granted in many cases! Just a joy to be able to meet them face to face know the connection we can have with them for years to come hopefully! As we were leaving, one of the women, Madame Moise wanted to give me a necklace and thanked me for coming to meet them and for our work with their project in the US! What a special and sweet gift! This necklace is so special to me and will always remind me of the day we were to meet and learn more about this wonderful project! We would love to share more about this project with you and would ask that you keep these women in your prayers along with Dorina and her family as they continue to create a sustaining and life-giving project to these women and their families in Pignon and the surrounding villages! What a gift it is to share in this project and what a gift that they were so honored and touched by the time we would take to help them and bringing supplies all the way from the US to help them continue their work! We hope to continue to support them by collecting supplies as well as selling their beautiful jewelry and share their story! Hopefully we will be able to return some day and visit them again! For more info, please go to www.haitianbeads.org You can also find The Haitian Bead Project on Facebook, check it out today!

The Dorcas Women's Group of Pignon by Terrie Jo Wold

Dorcas is a biblical character from Acts 9:36 who, “was devoted to good works and acts of charity”. The Dorcas Women of Pignon, Haiti, are an amazing group of women who live lives reflective of their biblical namesake by intentionally serving the people of Pignon. They represent at least 6 churches in the community and meet every Sunday afternoon at 4 pm in the home of their mentor, Lucy.

Many of the women are illiterate, so they memorize scripture and hymns to fill their hearts with God’s powerful words. They gather to study the Bible, sing hymns, pray, recite scripture, share reflections and inspiration on applying God’s words to their daily lives. It was so beautiful to be apart of their afternoon bible study and hear them recite scriptures in Creole and sing hymns with passion and love and spirit! The women of the group take turns visiting patients in the hospital every day of the week, serve a meal to the homeless once a month if they have the food and funds themselves to do this and help those in need. Some examples include replacing a roof or door on a home if needed and providing clothes, bedding, food or emotional support. These women probably all could very well be the ones in need and struggle everyday to provide for themselves and their families yet they have chosen to meet weekly and do what they can to help provide for those who have even less than they do - what an awesome thing to see and witness - God is working in and with this amazing group of women in all that they do!

The Sunday that we were there, we were fortunate enough to be able to go with Debbie Lucien to meet the women and join their bible study group. They were dressed for church- some even wearing hats; a few had bibles or song books. Lucy was encouraging the women to sign up for the Women’s Conference coming up at the Bible Camp this summer. She wanted them to sign up even if they couldn’t pay the registration fee so they would not miss this event. Kris and I gave a monetary donation to Lucy to use at her discretion for registration fees or the meal for the homeless. Debbie Lucien shared that this gift would fill them with hope and encouragement. One of the projects we worked on leading up to our mission trip to Haiti was to gather tshirts and make cloth diapers from them! We began working on this last October at Calvary's Mission Blitz! We had quite a few men and women helping us in the Coffee Shop cut tshirts and get them ready for sewing. In all and over the winter months, we were able to sew over 300 cloth diapers to bring with us to Haiti! I also made burp cloths, layettes and some baby blankets! All of these donations were brought to the Dorcas Women's group! It was sweet because when we arrived, some of them remembered meeting me on my last trip to Haiti in 2011. They shared that the cloth diapers I had brought then were given out over two years to new moms in need over the last two years and they were so thankful! They shared their gratitude and thankfulness and that they carefully distribute donations over time. They told us that the donations we brought this time would probably last them up to a year and be a huge help to the women and children of the community.

All of this work could not happen without a lot of help from people in our hometowns in the U.S. Naomi shared the story of a young girl, who is 10 years old who worked really hard along with her grandma and sewed over 75 cloth diapers! She wanted to help out as we were preparing to go to Haiti and this was a way she felt she could make a difference! Her Grandma and mom were so helpful in getting her involved and it was wonderful to see her smile and have her know she was really making a difference in the lives of others!! Thanks so much Kayla, Sharon and Shoni!!! We shared this story with the women that day and they offered to keep Kayla in their prayers that she would continue to be involved in her church and continue to help others in any way that she can both here at home and in Haiti! The women loved the story!!! We felt blessed to have this time with them and we hope to meet them again soon! Keep them in your prayers and continue to do what you can to help those in need that live near you - find what your gifts are and use them in a way that will serve and help others! That's in turn, going to be a wonderful gift to yourself as well knowing that you have blessed those with your gifts!