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“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). This Bible passage called the women of Emanuel, New London, Wis., to share their love of Christ with young girls in Zambia and Malawi.
Last March, Emanuel’s Lutheran Women’s Missionary Society (LWMS) sewed 61 dresses and sent supplies to WELS’ sister synods in Zambia and Malawi. Students from Emanuel’s school made crosses to put in each dress’ pocket to remind the girls of Christ’s love. Along with the dresses, Emanuel’s LWMS sent Thrivent t-shirts and baby supplies to be distributed by nurses from the Central Africa Medical Mission.
Members of Emanuel donated all of the supplies—from fabric and lace to bias tape, thread, and elastic. The LWMS then held a workday to create kits for volunteers to take home and make the dresses.
“We felt so blessed to do a project like this,” remarks Mary Kroiss, the coordinator of the project. “So many people were amazed by the project in our congregation. It lit a fire of the importance of mission work because we saw the fruits of our labor in creating the dresses ourselves and seeing the impact they had on these girls.”
The dresses reached Malawi and Zambia in mid-May. The girls loved the dresses and had fun trying them on for the first time.
Angela Sievert, a member of the Central Africa Medical Mission, saw the dresses being distributed. She says, “I love when two countries, thousands of miles away, reach out to each other and share their faith through gifts or showing they care for each other.”
Author: Nicole Tessmer
Volume: 109, Number 10
Issue: October 2022
