Last November there was a small team of people who came to Swaziland from The
Village Christian Church in Minooka, Illinois, including the Pastor, Nate
Ferguson. Pastor Nate started the
church in 2004 with only 40 people in it's first congregation.
Pastor Nate’s sister, Sarah Windham, travelled with him as
well as his brother Jeremy and his wife Raelenna and a couple of their
children. Nate was very interested
in what we are doing at Project Canaan and asked LOTS of questions, with the
hope of finding some way for their church to get involved.
They came up with the idea of getting their church involved
in selling Heart for Africa Christmas Tree Ornaments. They wanted to do something
BIG that would require God to be involved for them to be successful. They asked if they could order 2,000
ornaments!! WHAT?! That would be $20,000 US in sales! Of course our answer was
“yes!”
I believe it was only a few minutes later that Pastor Nate
started to panic. You see, they
are in the middle of a Capital Campaign for a new church building, the church
is in growth mode, they are adding staff, expanding mission team and now, they
were selling Christmas Tree Ornaments. The
family went to their knees, and prayed, and He heard their prayers.
Two Sunday’s ago they launched their Ornament Campaign to
their 400 church members. Sarah
made up 40 bags with 26 ornaments ($260) and 96 bags with 10 ornaments ($100). By the end of the day 1,400 ornaments
had left with church members who were committed to selling them and brining the
money back by November 1st.
Why did she pack them in bags of 26? Well, for every 26 ornaments that sell, we can fully cover all the costs for one child at the El
Roi Baby home for a month (food, bottles, diapers, clothes, medical, Aunties,
night shift etc). Not to mention
that we are employing 54 full time people on Project Canaan JUST to make these
ornaments!
Eight days later they only had 10 ornaments left out of the
2,000 we had shipped them.
Yesterday Sarah ordered 300 more … and it was only October 9th.
Here is a short history of this idea. In 2013 (October and November only) we
handmade and sold 1,200 Angel ornaments.
In 2014 we handmade and sold 8,000 Angel and Tree ornaments. This year we have handmade and sold
approximately 11,000 up to today, October 10th, and we made 12,000 of
them in total (!).
We only have Stars and Trees in stock in the US right now as
our Angels have completely sold out, BUT we are going back in to full
production at Khutsala Artisans on Monday morning and we will have more
beautiful ornaments in the US office by the end of October.
I am told that Pastor Nate has calmed down, has completely
seen the hand of God on this and no doubt is thankful for his sister’s
tenacity, organizational skills and faith! While he is thrilled to be able to support us in a
significant financial way, his heart’s desire is to tell people about what God
is doing through Heart for Africa in Swaziland, and clearly that is being
accomplished.
I am so very proud of Pastor Nate, Sarah and the entire
church for taking this leap of faith. It is so exciting to see how excited YOU
are and how blessed you are being for your commitment. Thank you for being such
a great example of people who step out in faith, and then watch to see what God
does.
If any of you want to play a bigger part in the 2016 Heart
for Africa Christmas ornament Campaign, please email me directly at
janine@heartforafrica.org.
But in the meantime, it’s time to order your ornaments by
CLICKING HERE.
At this
time we do not have an online store on our Canadian website, but you may email
Stephanie for Canadian orders – Stephanie@heartforafrica.org
Thank you
for shopping and for your support.
Live from
Swaziland … I am taking Christmas ornament orders to Taiwan tomorrow!
Janine
PS If you live in the Minooka,
Illinois area and want to buy ornaments from
them please call The Village Christian Church at 815-467-2265 and ask for Super
Sarah :)
