Sparrow Spotlight: Sarah Foster

I am so excited to announce a new collaboration with interior designer, Sarah Foster!  She has been working enthusiastically on a new collection of vibrant throw pillow covers that will debut oh so soon at The Sparrow Studio.  I love the way God has been weaving threads to this Sparrow tapestry together behind the scenes and just gradually revealing the bigger picture to us along the way.  I can only imagine what is around the next bend!  

I’m Sarah Foster, and in many ways, life has been oh so good and we’ve been on a “traditional track.”  In the last two years, the Lord has done an incredible work in my heart and mind.  A sweet friend passed away, and I found myself filled with fear and uncovering a real lack of trust in God.  Proverbs 3:5 has been creeping into every crevice (“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”).  Real trust is simple.  Real love is simple.  Know God’s character and go for it.  And then I read Jen Hatmaker's Seven (testimony of a life ruined, thanks, Jen), followed by Katie Davis's Kisses from Katie, then Bob Goff’s Love Does, and my heart was turned completely inside out.  And a real tension developed with my work as an Interior Designer.  I began praying that God would provide a means for my gifts to intertwine with Kingdom work.  Simultaneously, He decided that we should move from our home in Durham, North Carolina to Denver, Colorado for a job opportunity for my husband.  We felt plucked from our comforts, our home, and were now a significant distance from most of our closest relationships.  But we felt confident it was God’s plan, and everything about the job and the move had incredible God momentum.  I couldn’t have guessed the incredible provision God had for us in Denver.

A great church surfaced quickly.  And soon I found myself at Ms Muffie’s for ballet class for our 4 year old.  Then in came Annie, a Noonday Ambassador, and we connected all these dots about what we’d been reading, the IF Gathering; and through the IF Gathering blog I learned what Noonday Collection was (podcast interview with Jessica Honegger).  Annie gave me the Fall lookbook, and I was floored.  THIS was the marriage of my gifts and heart.  I hosted a Noonday Collection trunk show to dip my toe in the water of fair trade craftsmanship.  I wanted to see what was possible, in person. The product is great, but that wasn’t the calling (for me).  Home accessories, made in the same spirit, became a fire inside me.  There were actually Christians out there bringing beautiful, modern, relevant creations into the marketplace.  I wanted a part in it.

While in the midst of working through the Restless Project, I casually mentioned to Annie that I’d been praying for a way to use my gifts.  She looked me in the eye and said, “I have an idea for you.  (knowing my design background)  I’ve started a line of home accessories, and I need help designing product.”  Jaw dropped.  Partnership formed.

As a product of the Lord’s work, I find myself working to create a hopeful life for 35 women in Rwanda through the crafting of interesting, well designed home accessories.  I’d can't wait to someday meet them face to face!  I am new to Rwanda's story, but I’ve been reading and learning about the people and the culture since Annie invited me into The Sparrow Studio.  I am beginning to dream of employing the women of More than Sparrows full time- to keep them from turning to their old jobs in the sex trade for rent money, to increase their health care opportunities, to provide opportunities for educational growth, and most of all, to show them, and their community, that God does, in fact, make all things new.  He’s made me new, and I am so grateful.  What an amazing gift to be a part of this unfolding story of forgiveness and redemption He is writing in Rwanda, and through women all over the world loving all people wholeheartedly, just as He’s called us to do.  

For a sneak peak of the new pillow line Sarah is designing, follow us on Instagram: thesparrowstudio!

DIY Sewing Kits

Laura (my Sparrow partner in Rwanda) asked if I could send the ladies sewing kits, and I want to show you what we came up with. 

We could have easily bought simple cheapo sewing kits, but I wanted to make something pretty.  Also, they were going to Africa, so they needed to be sturdy.  I was excited for a chance to make something for the More than Sparrows ladies that would be personalized and lovely, since that is exactly what they regularly send me.  I always benefit from their creativity and industry, and it was fun to return the favor.  The sewing kits are little valentines from the US to Rwanda.

Thankfully, I have crafty friends who are attentive to detail and more organized than I am.  Enter, Morgan, who dreamed up these lovely little sewing kits. 

We collected empty glasses cases and spray painted them white with primer.  How did I not know this amazing stuff existed?  Spray paint primer = my new favorite craft supply.

Glasses cases are a strange material, and spray primer was key to anything else cute sticking to them.  Then we spray painted them with pretty spring colors. 

Thankfully, I have generous crafty friends.  All my regular ladies came over and made quick work of decorating with washi tape and filling with sewing essentials. 

Morgan found sturdy little foldable scissors, and we hot glued magnets for pins, felt to hold needles, seam rippers, thimbles, measuring tape, fabric pencil, and embroidery floss.  As a bonus (to me), we used hot glue I inherited from my husband's grandmother and needles from my precious Mimi.  Grandmother craft supplies are my favorite. 

I hope the ladies feel valued with this tiny gift, because they certainly are. 

A brief Thank You letter to some friends

To those of you who have been holding my hand (and perhaps holding your breath) from the very beginning, thank you.  You know who you are.   You are the women who bought 50 "training birds" and believed that the broken birds made by broken women were not the end of this story.  You told me that as the women healed, the birds would also improve, and I should keep putting one foot in front of the other.  

You also told me (more than once) that it was pure blessing that I didn't know what was coming down the road, because I might have been tempted to panic.  (You were right).  But God knew what He was doing the whole time.  He knew when to keep my blinders on and exactly what He was weaving together.  

Thank you for sending me a check in the mail and calling it an investment but not a loan and trusting me to use it wisely- twice.

Thank you for organizing entire craft projects and girls nights.  

Thank you for paying the rent for the co-op house through March 2015!  

Thank you for buying 500 birds in one fell swoop because you thought my friends and I were worth all your money.  Thank you for telling all your friends and clients and colleagues about my work and for advocating boldly for women you will never meet this side of heaven.

Thank you for donating your time, your talents, your wisdom, and not complaining when I didn't have time to wash my hair before coming over for lunch.  

Thank you for typing up my business plan just to be nice, when the very thought of it made me a little cross-eyed.  

Thank you for taking sparrow to your neighbors and your work to sell for me.

Thank you for buying a white board and sewing machines for the co-op.

Thank you for mailing product to me for free as a ministry donation.  

Thank you for hauling 50 pounds of sparrows all the way around the world for me, when it would have surely been easier to travel with only one piece of luggage.  

Thank you for faithfully lifting some pretty extreme prayer requests up and telling me to just keep sending more your way.  Thank you for asking your family to pray, too.

Thank you for opening your home up to trunk shows and partnering with me in advocating for artisans all over the world, including the women of More than Sparrows.  

Thank you for each garland and ornament purchase you made.  Every single purchase meant another night a mom did NOT have to sell her body.  She thanks you.  And I thank you.  Every dollar you spent was a vote for what you value.   

Love,

Annie

Let's Start at the Very Beginning....

...a very good place to start.

"How did you...?  How did this...?" is a question I hear several times a week.  If you have asked that question, I probably just shook my head and answered, "I don't know!  It started as a simple conversation, which led to a favor for a friend, which led to... a new business?"   

Now that I have had a couple of months to process everything that has happened since that initial conversation with Mimi Wilson one morning in church, I can see that God was weaving many seemingly disparate threads together to create a colorful tapestry and connect all the right people together for something really exciting.  I am still surprised at where we are today, moving this business from my minivan to this website, but I am no longer shaking my head in disbelief.  

Fall 2013, when my youngest was 4 months old, I became an Ambassador for Noonday Collection, selling fair trade accessories handmade by artisans in vulnerable situations (such as AIDS, widows, genocide survivors).   My primary goals were fairly simple- have a little motivation to dress up and get out of the house and have a chance to connect and converse with other women.  I was also excited to be able to call excessive jewelry purchases "business expenses."  And I wanted to advocate for adoption, since I believe one of the best ways to provide orphan care and prevention is to provide dignified jobs for parents at risk of losing their children for lack of sufficient funds to care for them (which Noonday Collection does through their partnership with vulnerable artisan groups).  

Joining the Ambassador community was like stepping through the wardrobe to Narnia.  I was in a completely new world, chasing down blog trails and devouring books on human trafficking, fair trade ethics, global economics, adoption theology, justice, and even fashion.  Everything changed- the way I shopped, the way I dressed, the conversations I sought out, and the things I talked about on facebook.  Also, I started to cry more, about everything- about orphans, about women, about the sex trade, about factory workers in Bangladesh, about God's unmistakable movement in my life orchestrating unbelievable details perfectly, about how I have hot water for long showers while children were dying of simple thirst.  

Enough incredible, beautiful, stretching conversations kept happening over facebook chat and at trunk shows that I started approaching all of life differently.  My mindset became one of taking advantage of every new opportunity that arose, of walking through every open door in front of me.  I hardly stopped to think about it; I just viewed every conversation as an opportunity to learn from someone and build a connection.  I wanted to be open to whatever was next.  

Fast forward to one morning at church, I decided to be bold, because I wanted to meet a woman I had heard about who I knew was visiting from Rwanda.  I asked what she was doing there and told her about Noonday's artisans in Africa.  

I started to dream with Mimi and with a few of her friends.  Then we started to brainstorm.  Then I got some pictures of Mimi's Rwandan friends (who she refuses to call prostitutes) in my email.  I started to learn their names, their stories, and their prayers.  I offered to try and sell a few Christmas decorations for them, just to be helpful.  Then I sold 8 times more than my initial agreement.  And now, here we are in February 2014 with a social enterprise and the start of a home goods and holidays collection.  Welcome to The Sparrow Studio.  Feather your nest with hope. 

Welcome to thesparrowstudio.com!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of TheSparrowStudio.com!  In the upcoming weeks look for more product being posted online, as well as spotlight interviews with the More than Sparrows artisans.  

Carousel Garland pictured