tuesday smiles- world craftiness

You may have recently noticed a while back that I added a few little new tabs in the bar under my blog header. One of these new tabs is called “Give it Away.”  If you click on this tab you will see a variety of  non-profit ministries that our family supports. We have chosen to throw our lot in with these organizations and these people because of the personal connections we feel to both the people serving and those who are being served. If you visit the Give It  Away page you can read all about each project, and  follow their links and learn more about the lives of those they minster too.

As we all get ready for the holidays (yes, I it. Christmas isn’t that far away.)  I am going to share with you a variety of ways our family has found to give gifts that then in turn, also give gifts. Some of these things I will even be putting on my wish list!

Because we all like pretty things, I thought I would start WorldCrafts Village.

Growing up a preachers daughter (and granddaughter and niece and great-niece…) meant that I spent a lot of my childhood in church, and I had a fairly informed experience in both large and small churches across the country. Through it all – all the way through college – my very favorite branch of our church was the  WMU – the Women’s Mission Union. See those words right there together: Women. Mission. Union. Yep. That pretty much sums up everything I loved and love still about it. Women, serving other women -specifically those who have been disenfranchised in some way – together. They would deny it to their graves I am sure, I know my grandmother would, but those WMU women that I knew growing up,  well they were (and are) practically feminist in their approach and outreach. They were the first ones to open my eyes to the idea that the world was large, interesting, exotic, and that I should explore it with my eyes wide open.  They also planted the first little seed in me as an elementary student, through the the Girls in Action program, that I could affect change. That through giving even the smallest portion of my allowance and by partnering with those who were on the ground, doing the daily hard work of helping meet the needs of women and children – even those half a world- I could somehow make a difference in a child’s life who had not been born into the same advantages I had. They also taught me how to fry bananas in an electric skillet.