Neema
means Grace in Kiswahili. Something that God has shown me a lot of in
my life.
Neema
is a cafe in Iringa, Tanzania that is empowering an amazing community
of people who are deaf or physical disabled. It has it all: coffee, food,
library, internet, and a shop selling beautiful handmade items by
these talented people! They gain amazing work experience through
sales and marketing, learning trades, running the cafe, cooking and
they are currently doing construction on a 9 bedroom guest
accommodation project to give experience in hospitality and tourism. Neema is also changing negative attitudes towards people with disabilities in the local community.
We’ve been helping out in a
variety of ways where we are needed: insulating the kiln for
ceramics, In the workshop: where they do screenprinting, handmake
paper, quilting, weaving on beautiful old looms, sewing, making
jewelry, cleaning, doing food prep and more! In short, I’m in a
little slice of Artist’s paradise here!
I’ve
been helping in the workshop covering journals with handmade paper
that they make from corn husk and elephant dung both extremely
renewable resources 🙂 There are some amazing people in the workshop
and I’ve been partnered with Petro, an amazing man with hearing
empairment. I’m used to language barriers at this point and enjoyed
adding a second level of communicating not only in Kiswahili, but in
English Sign Language (British versioin) diferent than the little
American Sign Language that I do know. Thankfully the alphabet is
similar to finger spell basic things.
He
was so excited that I was trying and after the first day we were
communicating pretty well. Language can be a barrier, but I chose to
let it be the first steps to uniting us. Language is a beautiful
thing, just like this ministry that is very close to my heart.
“Therefore,
since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by
faith into the grace in which we now stand.� Romans 5: 1-2
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