The Oasis of Hope Women’s Sewing Project Update

Their smiles say it all.  The joy of new-found hope and the love of Jesus in the faces of our most recent women’s sewing project graduates.

It seems like a small thing--learning to sew clothes, shoulder bags, small, stuffed animals, and more.  Bringing hope and the love of Jesus to women marginalized by widowhood, divorce, or abandonment are the products of small steps.  The first step is when a woman so painfully shy that she can only look at the ground arrives and tentatively knocks on the Oasis door.

Greeted by smiling faces and encouraging voices she soon feels the affection of women who just weeks or months before were in the very same place as she.  People listen to her heart and her story.  She shares her hurt and hopelessness and someone listens.  The soft touch of another who has shared similar pain assures her that she has found a place of hope.  The love of Jesus begins to bathe her in the light of expectation where the shadows of despair begin to fade.

Soon her smile and sparkle begin to show as helpful hands show her how to sew a straight line or to make a hem.  Hope takes root.  Fellowship, prayer, Scripture, and song fill the air and her heart as she begins to raise her eyes and take hold of hope that will last.

It is now her turn to open the door for a woman who can only look at the ground. 

Small steps.