Christmas with our kids = a day filled with joy and hope!

 

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with 275 children and 100+ staff who provide a loving home for those children. We believe that traditions are very important and not only help with identity and a sense of belonging, but also provide excitement and expectations for life events in the family.

On Christmas morning our children eat delicious fat cakes (big round dense donuts) rolled in sugar and cinnamon. Christmas day is typically scorching hot so the swimming pools are assembled and swimsuits are pulled out of the closet.  Lunch consists of pancakes, crispy bacon, syrup, fruit and a healthy dollop of whip cream. 

 

 

After lunch is cleaned up and sticky hands and faces are washed, we present each child with a wrapped gift and a very special chocolate wrapped in foil. The children all know that the gift contains a new pair of pajamas and they know that they get the same chocolate every year, and they are so excited about it. Every child sits quietly waiting for their name to be called and then they run up to the front of the room, put out both hands to receive the gift (very important in Swazi culture) and curtsy while saying thank you. Then they head out of the Oasis to sit at a picnic table and wait patiently for everyone to receive their gifts so that they can all open them together. Some years we give the chocolate at the same time as the gift (if we remember) and some years we don’t.  

 

 

As I was video-taping everyone opening their pajamas I felt a tug on my leg and looked down to see a very sad little boy with his bottom lip quivering. It was Willis (given my maiden name following my mom’s death). He was holding his pajamas, but with a very sad face asked if he was still going to get the chocolate. Willis is only five years old, but remembered the tradition (and probably heard the older kids talking about it) and so came forward to make his simple request. I assured him that everyone would be receiving a chocolate and he was relieved. I too was relieved that we hadn’t forgotten them in the walk-in fridge only to find them later. Ian told me that many of the children also asked him about the “expected” chocolate and so while we may have forgotten, they sure hadn’t. I realize there is a fine line between entitlement and tradition, but we really do want to have things that they can look forward to each year.

 

 

Like most mothers I always want Christmas day to be perfect, and that is hard at the best of times, but with 275 children with tradition expectations the pressure is amplified. But we have an incredible team of people who do the heavy lifting and help make Christmas perfect.  I would like to take a moment to thank our Sr. Supervisor for the toddler home and kitchens, Khosi Mamba, for her never-ending smile and willingness to listen, learn and lead. Khosi, you and the kitchen staff made Christmas day perfect for our children and staff. 

 

 

I would also like to thank our long-term volunteer, Bryan Throgmorton, who is the master planner and organizer for all of the 190+ children living at the Emseni campus. He not only creates a daily plan that includes chores, learning, play and activities, but he also makes sure that decorations are put up, and come down in a timely fashion, tables set and decorated and children ready to do whatever they are asked to do next. 

 

 

The only thing that Bryan wasn’t able to do this year to make Christmas 100% perfect was to bring Chloe home. Chloe, you were missed by us all, but no-one more than me. 

 

 

We were all so happy to have Spencer here and ZOOM allowed us to open gifts with Chloe in Canada and enjoy a family visit with the Maxwell clan in Canada, U.S and Scotland.

 

 

We know that this Christmas brought new types of stress to people all over the world, and that stress was wrapped with sadness and loneliness for many, but I hope that you were able to find a way to find joy on Christmas day, and I hope that this blog and our children will bring you hope for today and in the days and months ahead.

 

As we all look forward to 2020 coming to an end, I ask that you consider making your most generous year-end gift to Heart for Africa to enable us to continue to fight hunger, caring for orphans, alleviate poverty and provide education in Eswatini. 

 

To make a year end gift in Canada please click here.  

To make a year end donation in the U.S. please click here.

Live from Eswatini … enjoying a season filled with hope!

Janine

Christmas trees, birthday cake and a naked man

Today is the big day that our children have been waiting for – home decorating for Christmas!  Each home where “big kids” live (ages 4-9) has its own Christmas tree.  The children get to put their own angel ornament (with their name on the ornament) on the tree and then further decorate it any way they want. Then a group of kids heads to the Oasis to decorate the dining hall for the Christmas season. They are so good at remembering where each decoration goes, and we all work hard to make sure it looks the same each year. Other children will start to make paper chains that will strung from the rafters to bring joy and color to the building.

This week one of our staff members that doesn’t live with the children asked them what some of their favorite Christmas traditions were at home?  The kids quickly answered that on Christmas day they ALWAYS get pancakes and bacon for breakfast, new pajamas as a gift and a fancy chocolate and then get to swim for the rest of the day (Christmas day typically sees temperatures well over 100F).  We have worked very intentionally to have traditions that the kids can look forward to every year for Christmas, Easter, birthdays and any other annual event that we would celebrate with Spencer and Chloe.  I was so happy to hear that it’s working and they love it.

 

This past week we had some local visitors (our first since lock down began on March 25^th) and they brought a Christmas gift of 116 large cans of baby NAN formula (a $2,000+ donation!). As we stood at the children’s campus it was lunch time and the toddlers (2 years old) were called to go in and wash their hands and use the toilet. Every small child started to clean up the yard, pushing or carrying their myriad of toys over to the area that we put them away where they belonged. At a young age they are being taught responsibility and to take care of their things, which they do with great pride. It was a magical sight, and one that I never tire of.

 

Later we celebrated a birthday at the toddler home, and as part of our tradition, birthday-girl Carol got her very own birthday cake to share with her brothers and sisters in that home. The Aunties always dress each child in brand new clothes and shoes and make them feel honored on their special day. Many/most of these clothes and shoes are lovingly purchased by our Canadian Chairperson and friend, Carol Hickman, who just loves to shop for our kids (little Carol is her namesake). 

 

We always pray a blessing over the child and then the children give thanks for the cake which they are about to eat. I will confess that my eyes were open during the prayer and I’m really glad they were so that I could snap these super cute photos!

 

 

This week wasn’t all Christmas decorating and birthday fun, it was also fraught with the usual challenges of working in Africa including a shepherd stripping naked in front of a supervisor for no apparent reason (drugs or witchcraft are expected) and the mysterious disappearance of 11 young cows (somehow linked to the naked man)?

 

We also had to further reduce our Khutsala Artisan staff, which is extra heartbreaking to do right before Christmas. We hope to be able to bring people back to work in 2021, but that can only happen if people buy our product on line.  Please consider shopping with a purpose at www.khutsala.com and enjoy Black Friday sales this weekend. 

 

Even with all the challenges we face, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

 

Live from Eswatini … It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Janine

The truth about the “perfect” Christmas

I won’t speak for all mom’s, but I think I do speak for the majority when I say that we want Christmas with our family to be “perfect”.  We work tirelessly to find the perfect gifts, wrap them perfectly, decorate the house the way you always do, bake everyone’s favorite goodies, meal plan the favorite meals and then worry about what isn’t going to go right.  The sense of control is profound and important, because we want perfection.

This desire for perfection escalates when you only see your children once a year, and only once a year you are together as a family, and it’s for a short amount of time. I know that many of you know what I am talking about.

This year was no different for me in this area.  The HARDEST thing about being obedient and serving the Lord by moving to Africa is the impact that it has had on Spencer and Chloe.  Spencer went off to University on his own as we packed all of our earthly belongings and moved a million miles away, and Chloe moved with us, only to move on to High School in Taiwan the following year as it was a better fit. 

That was 6.5 years ago, and they have navigated through life with their parents a phone call away, but not a hug away.  I have shed many tears over the things I have not been there in person to help with, and can hardly see the computer as I type these words.

Christmas is a most precious time for me, and for us all, and I always want it to be perfect, and perfect requires control. Well, we all know that we aren’t in control, God is.

When Chloe arrived she was missing a suitcase, which had all her clothes and most of her Christmas gifts, which she too had worked so hard to find just the perfect gifts for all of us. Not only did Ethiopian Airline lose her suitcase, but there were items stolen from the suitcase that did make it with her.  She gift wrapped a box that when opened on Christmas morning the recipient found the contents gone.  Can you imagine that? 

Spencer had a terrible journey home with 18 hours of delays, including TWO disembarking from two airplanes due to mechanical problems. It took him 52 hours to fly from Barcelona to eSwatini and we lost a day of family time.  And again, his baggage was opened and he was robbed. They even took things from the bottom of his suitcase, moving things around so that other Christmas gift items were broken. Yes, zip ties are a great idea, and they will use them next time, but seriously?? Should they have to do that?

We are told that Joburg airport has one of the highest theft rates in the world.  That was proven true when 100% of my family travelers were robbed this Christmas. Chloe’s bag never arrived, she borrowed clothes for the week and finally found it in Joburg on her way back out of the country on Dec 27^th.  While we are thankful that it was found, it did not provide for the perfect Christmas (and resulted in dozens of expensive phone calls to Toronto, Ethiopia and South Africa).

Did I mention that it is always unbearably hot here at Christmas time (between 96F36C – 104F/40C) with full humidity, leaving us to sit sweating under the fans and putting ice packs around our necks? Oh, and did you know that with this type of humidity a pavlova (meringue) will not hold its shape because it’s too humid? Christmas dessert was a fail. But Ian cooked the turkey on the Green Egg outside because we simply couldn’t bear to put on the oven in the heat, and it was perfect, and delicious.

But with all of that said, our Christmas was perfect.  We were together, and we got to celebrate Jesus’ birth together, as a family, once again.  We enjoyed delicious food, that wasn’t always perfect.  We survived the heat, with very little complaint (except maybe from me J).  We loved seeing 170 children eat French toast and bacon until they couldn’t eat any more (Jonathan ate FOUR pieces and an unknown number of pieces of bacon!) and then we go to hand out a special Christmas gift to each of them and watch them all wait patiently and then squeal with delight (new pajamas).

Jonathan

River

We live in a broken and hurting world where thieves steal Christmas gifts from weary travelers, where mothers dump babies in pit latrines to die and where each of us have moments of doubt, fear, pride, resentment, jealousy, anger and we just can’t ever hit “perfection”.  But friends, I was reminded over and over this season that Jesus came to the earth and He is perfection, and He is all we need.  Afterall, the first Christmas wasn’t so perfect either though, was it? No room in the Inn?  Having a baby in a barn with no medical support?  No clean water, warm bed or pain killers?  But in the end, it was all worth it, and it really was perfect, it just wasn’t as Mary had planned it to be.

I am eternally grateful for this opportunity to serve “the least of these” in this tiny Kingdom, but I am even more grateful that Spencer and Chloe still come home at Christmas, knowing that their journey will be long and hard and that they might be robbed. They know that mom and dad aren’t perfect, and we all have our “stuff”, and yet they come. 

I have had a very teary Christmas season, some tears because I miss my children, some tears because I wonder if we made a huge mistake in moving here, some tears are from gratefulness, and some tears because I see a deathly ill child (Isabelle) smile when eating pudding for the first time.

Thank you all for reading this very long blog, and for being on this journey with me in 2018.  I will continue to write in 2019 and hope that you will continue to pray with us, love us and support us.

Many blessings to you and your family, broken and all.  Let none of us strive for perfection in 2019, except in Him.

Live from eSwatini … I am thankful.

Janine

If you would like to make a year-end gift so that we can continue in 2019, please give here:

In the US:  http://bit.ly/2018YearEndGivingUS

In Canada:  https://www.heartforafrica.ca/2018-year-end-giving/

Newborn twin girls arrived today

What do you do on your Christmas family holiday?

 This week has been a busy one, but with the perfect rhythm of winding down for Christmas. We picked up Spencer and Chloe at the airport in Johannesburg, did our last minute Christmas shopping in South Africa, hosted a Christmas party with the Project Canaan staff and had our celebration dinner for our Kindergarten and Primary school students who excelled in school last semester (complete with KFC,  Root Beer floats and the Grinch).

Today I planned to do welcome some special visitors, go to Kids Club, do some last minute wrapping and food prep for some family favorites. Mid day I got a call that stopped me in my tracks and reminded me of why we are here.

The caller shared the sad news that there was a set of newborn twin girls who were born on Tuesday at home and whose mother died suddenly last night. The police and social welfare were involved with the case and were dealing with a hysterical old Grandmother who was left mourning the death of her daughter and knowing that she could not possibly care for the newborn twins. She was extremely poor, living in squalid conditions. I was asked if we could take the babies? I said “yes”, and hopped in the car with Spencer and Chloe to go pick them up.

These little ones will be our 9^th set of twins (!).  As they are “Christmas babies” we have named them Holly and Ivy. They will also carry Swazi names, naming them after their mother and Grandmother.  They bring our baby total up to 178 (receiving 32 in 2017).  These two little girls are the sweetest little babies, weighing 2.4KG (5.2 lbs) and 2.2 KG (4.8 lbs). 

Thank you for coming along in this adventure with me each week. I love that together we can celebrate birthdays, new babies, and miracles.  Equally I appreciate that together we can mourn the loss of children, pray for very sick children and share the frustrations of security issues and crime.  In all of these things, we give thanks to the Lord for His provision and steadfast love.

As I often say, it takes a village to raise a child, and I am thankful that you are a part of our village.

PS Please consider making a year end financial gift to help Holly and Ivy and their 176 brothers and sisters.

In the US click here.

In Canada click here.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Live from Swaziland … I am at peace.

Janine

A bitter sweet day for me, and a gift for you.

Thursday was a really hard day.  We were asked to bring a 6-day-old baby boy to Project Canaan whose mother died two days after his birth.  The boy was born on the floor of a stick and mud house where his young mom lived with her parents and 13 other people. The baby’s father is nowhere to be found, his family is very poor and there is no food, no clothes, no diapers and now, a mountain of grief and sorrow.    They have no money to bury their daughter, so are trying to borrow funds and bury here next week.  I took the 5+ pound baby from a distraught Grandmother who knew the boy how had a chance at life and a future.

Thursday was bitter sweet. The sadness of the family was bitter, but bringing the newborn baby back to Project Canaan, while our whole big family was celebrating US Thanksgiving (complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy!) was nothing but sweet.

Today is a new day and it’s the beginning of the Christmas season.  We celebrated here with our annual Project Canaan Academy Christmas pageant, and it was magical.  The children performed beautifully and the true meaning of the Christmas season was celebrated.

As you sit and read this blog today then move on to some online shopping I ask that you please start your shopping at www.khutsala.com.  We have 110+ workers who have worked all year to have product on our website and are depending people like you to buy their goods.  The handcrafted jewelry and beadwork is beautiful and very high quality.

As a special gift to YOU for being loyal blog readers, I am offering you a 50% OFF discount for everything at www.khutsala.com (excluding tree ornaments) by entering the code JANINESBLOG. This offer is from today until Monday only.

PLEASE shop today and help us care for our 174 babies PLUS the 100+ Khutsala artisans.

Christmas with children is wonderful and I am thankful to have 176 to celebrate with.

Live from Swaziland … praying that you will shop www.khutsala.com.

Janine

Was your Christmas absolutely perfect?

The "perfect" Christmas brunch.

 

This blog is likely a bit more for moms than dads, but I encourage for dads to read it anyway so that you have a glimpse in to what may go through your wife’s mind during the Christmas season.  I am certainly not claiming to be the voice for all women or moms, but I think I might be speaking for a few of you.

We want every day of the holiday season with our family and friends to be perfect. Absolutely perfect.   Every cookie, every wrapped gift, every cup of coffee, every meal, every light on the tree, every piece of music chosen, every interaction between family members and especially every conversation.  We think about what we can do to stretch the hours in the day so no moment is wasted? How early can we get up so that the kitchen smells good and how late can we go to bed so that the house looks perfect? 

Making the "perfect" brunch for 98 children and 60+ staff.

How do we prepare meals in advance so that we maximize our time with our family and not waste it doing things like dishes, laundry, taking out the garbage etc.

It’s exhausting, and that exhaustion, combined with unrealistic expectations, almost always leads to chaos and tears. 

Our family is not immune to the above picture, and mom is at the center of the dilemma (I am referring to me as mom, not my mom). 

Our family is complicated, as is yours.  Our complication is just different than your complication.  We hadn’t been together as a family since last Christmas and I wanted Christmas to be even more perfect than last year. But here’s the rub.  We have ALL changed in a year. We have all grown older, more mature (I hope), have had more hurts during the year, more joys, more experiences and we all arrive at Christmas, changed. 

What I learned this year at Christmas, despite my inability to deliver the perfect Christmas is that grace has to be at the center of our Christmas activities, and my family exhibited that in a wonderful way.  Grace starts with each of us and as the focus of Christmas is Jesus, we are reminded that Jesus was the ultimate grace-giver.

Chloe, Ian and Jane making home made vanilla ice cream (with farm fresh eggs of course).

Despite my own fears and failures, I had the very best Christmas with my amazing family.  I am unspeakably proud of the young man that Spencer has become as he graduated from Georgia State University and as I watched him working on his applications for his Masters in International Business schools.  I am unspeakably proud of Chloe who spent 35 hours traveling to Africa and 35 hours traveling back to Canada while talking through the decision to change her University focus from sociology to business. 

Both of these young people have navigated their University/College years with our 100% support, but it was from 8,600+ miles away.  We haven’t been there in person to help with buying a used car, getting new passports, navigating an apartment lease, dealing with banking, or more importantly, heart break, tears, fears, anger, joy or excitement that they face each and every day.  That has all been done by phone or Skype, which just isn’t the same as a real hug, a real tissue a real shoulder to cry on.  

Enjoying the first smoked pork butt made in Ian's new Green Egg!

All that being said is that I find myself beating myself up (as I know many of you do) and doing the “coulda, woulda, shoulda”, that moms do.  But then I remember what someone told me years ago, that every parent tries to do the best they can with what they have and what they know.  I know that I am doing that, and I am sure that you are too.

I would never have written my parenting life the way it has turned out.  Afterall, who in their right mind would pack up and move to Africa (period), especially when their children are still in school!  It’s crazy. But God’s plans are perfect (and can appear crazy). Now we have 146 children who are brothers and sisters to Spencer and Chloe.  I can’t imagine my life without them all.

The photo that makes it all worth while.

I am thankful for a heavenly Father who extends grace to me each and every day and shows me that He can use me even through my own fears, anger, frustration and doubt.  I pray that as you enter in to 2017, that you will also feel his love and grace in your life and that you will allow Him to use you, even through your fears, your anger, your frustration and your doubt.

Live from Swaziland … here’s to a new year.

Janine

We got a few days in Durban with the kids before Chloe flew home. The "perfect" spot for us.

How important are traditions, really?

Christmas lunch 2015

Spencer and Chloe often tease us that our Christmas tradition is to do something different ever Christmas.  Of course I am quick to defend our age old traditions of  having Chinese food on Christmas eve, apple turnovers on Christmas morning, turkey with Diane Maxwell’s potatoes Romanoff for dinner and of course the same homemade Christmas cookies ever year. 

I will admit that when we moved to the US we were no longer able to buy Pillsbury turnovers, so that tradition was forced to change into Ian’s (now famous) Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries and whip cream.  There is no way that the kids could complain about that upgrade in tradition, right?

Having Chinese food on Christmas Eve was a tradition dating back to my childhood.  It all started because there was only one restaurant where I grew up in Northern Ontario and it was a Chinese food restaurant called “The Shamrock”.  My mom wanted a quick easy meal at after the pharmacy closed on Christmas Eve before we made the 400-mile drive to my cousins’ house in Southern Ontario. The Chinese food in Swaziland is really not great, so last year our kids suggested that we change the tradition to include their favorite steak dinner, complete with baked potato and Greek salad, rather than Chinese food.  That was an easy sell for Ian and me.

While the traditions of turkey, potatoes and Christmas cookies have not changed, we have jointly agreed to include making pancakes, bacon and fruit salad for all our big kids and all of the Children’s Campus staff (180+ this year).   I believe that this new tradition has become the highlight of Christmas day for everyone in our family. And this year we welcome Spencer’s girlfriend, Jane, to join us in the kitchen, so again, even that new tradition has changed (and gotten better!).

Sometimes it is very easy for us to get caught up in having “the perfect Christmas” or holiday for our family. Sticking rigidly to traditions can not only cause unnecessary stress, but also prevent you from new blessings, new freedom and a joy that cannot be explained, but only experienced. 

While you prepare for your family Christmas celebration, or Hanukah, or whatever ever other festivity that you may be getting ready for, please consider being flexible this year, consider changing it up a bit and don’t forget that it’s the people who are in your “traditional plans” that really matter, not the decorations, or ingredients.

Live from Cape Town, South Africa … maybe enjoying a new tradition?

Janine

PS – In baby news – this past week baby Surprise was reunited with her mother after being with us for several months.  Shortly thereafter, a 6-month-old baby boy (Gideon) and yesterday an 8-week-old baby girl (Margaret) joined our family, brining us to 144 children.  Please pray for both of these babies as they arrived severely malnourished.  Margaret’s mother bled to death during childbirth and she has only been fed thin maize porridge, by her Grandmother, since birth. She currently weighs 2.6 KG (5.7 pounds).  

My mom was a hoarder

My mom's Christmas tree.

My mom was a lot of things including (but not limited to); brilliant Pharmacist, passionate researcher, loving mother and wife, devoted Christian, exquisite dessert chef and collector of all things. She simply did not have the ability to throw anything out.  I mean nothing.

Two extremes that I can now share publicly (now that she has passed away) would be finding a drawer full of used wax – the kind that was poured on the top of freshly made jelly to seal it (and then thrown out when the jelly was opened, but not mom’s).   And then there was the zip lock bag in the freezer that contained yarn that she planned to use to knit a sweater.  The problem that I had with that was that the yarn was made from a collection of fur that she had painstakingly collected over the years … from my childhood CAT, Smokey. 

Not kidding. 

I had countless conversations with my parents about cleaning out their basement full of three generations of pharmacy bottles/jars/chemicals/pills/stained glass windows/clocks/piano(s)/ and other stuff from generations of relatives who had died before them.  My words fell on deaf ears (literally and figuratively), mostly because my mom was convinced that she would be “raptured” and so all of her “stuff” would be left to “non-believers” who would be “left behind”. 

Oh mom.

My dad passed away in 2005.  A few years later my mom was moved to a nursing home,  and I was left to deal with the “stuff”.  I was angry that they had left the mess for me.  I felt that I was trespassing by going in to their home and throwing out dumpster(s) full of garbage, giving away their things and keeping the odd item for myself.  But with a lot of help from friends and family, I made it through.

After the big clean out in 2010 we shipped a 20ft container of things from mom and dad’s house to Project Canaan.  As we unpacked it and distributed mom’s treasures all over the farm I found myself repenting for my anger (over and over again).  The Lord knew exactly what those things were going to be used for and He kept them safely in my parent’s home.

Last weekend the Christmas tree was put up at the Oasis and our children hung their ornaments on that tree. That was my parents’ Christmas tree. 

When a child has a birthday and we have visitors join us for cake, the plates that the cake is served on are my mom’s plates.

The stained glass window that hangs in the pharmacy at the El Rofi medical clinic was in the front window of my Great Grandfather’s pharmacy at the turn of the century in Uxbridge, Ontario (also found stored in my parent’s basement).

Stained glass window from my Great Grandpa's pharmacy circa 1,800's.

I am not saying this in any way to be boastful, but rather to share my thoughts on how God works, and to show that I believe that everything that we have, comes from Him. It’s all HIS STUFF, and He will use it as He wishes!

Yesterday another container arrived from Canada and while it was mostly filled with diapers, wipes and toys, it also had the last of my mothers treasures. Among them was a beautiful piece of hand carved marble that my parents bought in India, many years ago.  It is inlaid with semi-precious stones, each carved by hand by the very same artisan families who hand-carved the Taj Mahal. 

My parents had it shipped back from India in the 70’s and then had a table base made for it.  It was one of the few pieces of her own furniture that was in her nursing home room.  It truly was a treasure (and not to be out of her sight!).  Now it is here in Swaziland, Africa, and I am so thankful for it. 

Another one of her prize possessions also made the trip.  Mom’s baby grand piano arrived in the container and will be used for piano lessons for our children (just as it was for me), Christmas concerts and lots of other special occasions.

Mom's piano - being moved by our JCB (she may roll over in her grave for this one).

As Christmas approaches and I prepare for Spencer and Chloe to come home, I am reminded every where I look at the influence my own parents had on my life, both in life and in their death.  Their work ethic, their faith, their commitment to family and their commitment to their community has forever impacted my life, the lives of our children and now, the tiny Kingdom of Swaziland.

Christmas is a time when family gathers together, and even with all of my parents “stuff” that now surrounds me, none of it replaces having them here in person. 

Live from Swaziland … having a “moment”.

Janine

A bag of frozen chicken parts?

Ncamile, Kim, Hlengiwe, S'bonga, Nqobile.

This week I had fun.   I don’t have fun very often. I LOVE my job and my life, but “fun” isn’t really a word I would use to describe by life, but this week I had fun.  My cousin Kim came to visit with her husband Joe and their friends Carol and Barry.  Since I first started my marketing business in Canada back in 1988 I wanted to hire Kim, but children, location, time and space never allowed us to work together.  But now, here we are in our 50’s and I have finally been able to hire and work alongside one of the brightest, creative, hard working sales people that I know.  In January Kim became the North American Sales Manager for Khutsala Artisans, based in Chardon, Ohio and this week we had fun together!

Kim came this week to work with the Khutsala Artisans team. We spent time talking about sales targets, pouring over spreadsheets, designing jewelry, packing boxes to ship and suitcases to carry.  She also came to encourage, thank and love the workers who are responsible for producing the product that she sells.  Let me give you an idea of what this team did in 2016.

In 2016 (only our 3^rd year in business) our amazing team of 100+ artisans produced:

• 3,152 assorted key chains (hearts, giraffes, flowers, elephants, Africa)

•  54,836 Christmas tree ornaments (4 different designs)

• 3,592 3D beaded giraffes, elephants, zebras and owls

• 297 Angel decorations/tree toppers

• 475 of the cutest reindeer decorations!

It total they have handmade 62,352 pieces of art made from wire and colored beads, and that does not include thousands of pieces of jewelry that were produced as well.

Before Kim came she told me she and her friend Carol wanted to buy a “treat” for all of the workers to thank them for learning a new trade and making each item with love and excellence. I spoke with our Production Manager and asked what would be the perfect treat, and a plan was made.

Yesterday the Khutsala Artisans stopped work early and sat in a dark room while I showed them our brand new website (www.khutsala.com).  Of the 105 people in the room, only four are on Facebook and the rest did not know what the internet was, but I did my best to explain. They were so excited to see their own faces on our site and squealed with delight when they saw the really awesome 1-minute videos that we have about how some of our things are made (you really need to go watch them – they are fun - https://heartforafrica.myshopify.com/pages/how-its-made). 

And then we announced what the real “treat” was. Each person would be given a 2KG (4.4 pound) bag of frozen chicken parts and a 2L bottle of Coke.  The room literally erupted in screaming (remember the day that Oprah gave away cars to her audience? Kinda like that.).  They jumped, they sang, they danced and after everyone received their frozen chicken and Coke there was a spontaneous dance party at Khutsala. A bag of frozen chicken parts showed our people that they are loved and appreciated - and last night their families all got to eat chicken!

“Khutsala” means “hard working person” in siSwati, and each of these artisans have worked hard this year to learn how to make beautiful products so that they can provide food and school fees for their own families. BUT as Kim and I discussed, if we don’t sell the product, we won’t need to keep them employed again next year.

Today I am asking you to go to our www.khutsala.com website and start your Christmas shopping.  This new website allows for Canadians to shop too (finally!).  We have many new and beautiful items for sale.  Your shopping will literally save the lives of the families whom we employ and 100% of the profit goes directly back to providing for our 141 (142 on Monday) children who call Project Canaan home.

If you are interested in hosting a jewelry party at your home or help us sell our goods, please email me at janine@heartforafrica.org or kime@heartforafrica.org.  

Live from Swaziland … hoping you will shop at www.khutsala.com today!  

Janine

PS - we also have some handmade wood and sisal ornaments. The wood and the sisal are harvested directly from Project Canaan.