"I sometimes imagine my whole life that way, as though each step was a stitch, as though I was a needle leaving a trail of thread that sewed together the world as I went by, crisscrossing others' paths, quilting it all together in some way that matters even though it can hardly be traced. A meandering line sutures together the world in some new way, as though walking was sewing and sewing was telling a story and that story was your life."The verb to spin first meant just this act of making, then evolved to mean anything turning rapidly, and then it came to mean telling a tale....the wonder is that every spinner takes the amorphous mass before her and makes a thread appear, from which comes the stuff that contains the world, from a fishing net to a nightgown. She makes form out of formlessness, continuity out of fragments, narrative and meaning out of scattered incidents, for the storyteller is also a spinner or weaver and a story is a thread that meanders through out lives to connect us each to each and to the purpose and meaning that appear like roads we must travel."~ Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway NearbyThe women in Action Kivu's sewing workshops have stories that, beyond their control, have been shattered by others. Today, they are weaving them together, making meaning from the seams and threads of their lives. As we approach a new year, we look forward with optimism to the present day, where women are learning a trade, earning income to support their families and send their children to school. And we have hope for the future, to grow the trainings and move into other villages where the need is great. We ask you to consider partnering with these women in the stories they're creating in Congo!
