Counting the hairs on our heads and the threads in our needles

God tells us that he counts the number of hairs on our heads, and he knows when even a tiny sparrow falls.  It shouldn’t surprise me when he plans something seemingly insignificant that turns into something huge, but it certainly delights me when I get to see it happen.  At Tania this summer, it was a simple sewing kit:  a handful of needles, a few spools of thread, a thread clipper, a needle threader, and a divine appointment.

The sewing kit was a last-minute addition to my packing list at the end of June.  I didn’t think I’d need it, but I had a nagging thought in my head that I should bring it.  It was so small, it seemed silly to leave it at home.  And after all, it would be nice to have in case I got a hole in my jeans while in Kenya.  I anticipated that it would stay in my suitcase the entire trip, but God had bigger plans for this tiny sewing kit.

One of the first things I noticed about the children here at Tania, after how joyful and loving they were, was how full their clothes were of easily fixed holes and tears.  I made a mental note to find out about mending the clothes of the children who stayed at the school for the August holidays once school was out.  What a great use of the sewing kit that I thought I wouldn’t need!

But God thinks even bigger than that—the social worker asked me if I would teach a mending class to some of the older girls during the August holiday.  Of course I would!  I’m no seamstress, but I could at least teach them how to thread a needle and make a finishing knot, if nothing else.

Mending classes have been so much more than I ever expected.  The first day, I had one of my class 4 girls, Sarah, watch me mend two jackets.  The next day, a few more children brought me clothes, so I set Sarah up with a needle & thread, and she mended alongside me.  The next day, we had a pile of clothes nose-high on our table, and there were 5 of us doing the mending.  Sarah was even helping me teach the newcomers what to do.

Our table in the back corner of the dining hall was a crazy mess of thread, needles, confusion, and pride this week as everyone who wanted learned how to fix their clothes.  No matter how easy the job or how many pieces of clothing a child had fixed, she still shouted “Teacher!  Look!” every time she completed a job.  And it brought me such joy to reward her for a job well done with a smile and praise, no matter how many times or how uneven the stitching.

Unless it’s THIS uneven.  This one I had to take away from the child and bring it home to pull the needle back through and undo all of the stitching.  If you like mazes, this would have been a fun puzzle for you.  But oh, that child gave it his all.

We’ve also had to improvise—my needle threader broke the first time I used it, so for a while I used the tiny piece of metal from the tip by itself to thread needles.  That eventually broke, too, so we’ve been threading needles the old-fashioned way (squinting your eyes & screwing up your face while you try to poke the thread through that impossibly small hole) ever since.  On Thursday, I spent a solid 40 minutes doing nothing but threading needles for the girls.

I also didn’t bring a pin cushion, and that many people and clothes at one table resulted in many, many needles on the floor.  I dug through my suitcases, searching for what I could use, and came up with a wrist band from last year’s sport camp.  It has been the perfect pin cushion!

I’ve really enjoyed these mending sessions with my girls so much more than I ever thought I would.  It warms my heart to see these children doing something concrete to make their lives better, and taking such pride in their work.  Even those who can’t physically use a needle and thread themselves love sitting with us and passing the thread clippers or needles to whoever needs them.  It has been a huge blessing for these children to learn a skill they so badly need, and it has been an even bigger blessing for me to watch them learn.  It was all possible because the God who counts the hairs on my head knew to tell me to bring a simple sewing kit to Kenya.