Working with Refugees- School, Cooking, and Money

As mentioned before in a previous blog post, two of the women from Sew Much Love also work with a refugee family from Burma on a regular basis. Here is Kim's latest update:

     Sara and I have been busy this summer with MuMu's family. We have taken them to the movies, to a couple of parks, taught them some board games and grown very close to this sweet family.
     It was interesting getting the kids registered for school, but after 5 hours and 3 different schools we got all three kids enrolled. We taught them about the school bus and where to catch it. Our middle schooler has to walk so we made sure his counselor knew that and she is watching out for him. We managed to figure out how to get them on a school lunch program only to discover they don't like the food! (Sigh)     There are still a few glitches, like figuring out tutors and ESL classes for Mom, but they seem to manage.     When I was in high school I struggled in Math. Can you imagine not speaking English very well, not understanding a calculator and not understanding Algebra at all?? And it's only the third week of school!! That's what our sweet Paw Say deals with everyday, yet she continues to try,  giving her best effort.     In Burma, children are not allowed to go to school, so even though this is difficult, they are determined.     Every week Sara and I come away with deep feelings of love and gratitude for this family. They are amazing and are figuring it out and grateful for the opportunity to be in America. We do not believe in coincidences...we were meant to meet the MuMu family and love them and serve them. In return, they have changed our lives forever!

Here are some pictures of Kim and Sara's cooking class with the refugee family! They taught them how to make brownies and caramel popcorn!

Here is a picture of when they taught them how to count money: 

If you are interested in helping refugee families like Sara and Kim, please feel free to contact them for more information! Here is the link video that the church released recently about refugees:

https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/refuge-from-the-storm?cid=HP_TH_22-9-2016_dWEL_fmc_xLIDyL1-A_

Our Favorite Potluck Recipes!

We have potlucks with some of our service days, and a few of our favorite recipes are here! These were two of the most highly requested recipes after our last potluck--Thanks for sharing these wonderful recipes with us, ladies!

Linda Barnett's Snickerdoodle Bars

Betty Crocker Snickerdoodle Bars

Prep time: 20 min

Total Time: 1 hour 45 min

Makes: 24 bars

2 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 ¼ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Cinnamon Filling

1 Tbl. granulated sugar

1 Tbl. cinnamon

Glaze (optional)

1 cup powdered sugar

1 to 2 Tbl milk

¼ tsp vanilla

1.      Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease bottom only of a 13x9 inch baking pan with cooking spray. In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

2.      In large bowl, beat butter with electric mixer on high speed until creamy.  Beat in sugars. Gradually beat in eggs and vanilla into sugar mixture until combined. On low speed, beat in dry ingredients until combined.

3.      Spoon half the batter into pan; spread evenly. Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture evenly over batter. If desired sprinkle 1/3 cup cinnamon chips or chopped pecans over cinnamon-sugar filling in center of bars.

4.      Dollop teaspoon size amounts of remaining batter evenly over cinnamon-sugar mixture.

5.      Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

6.      In small bowl, stir glaze ingredients until smooth and thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle over bars. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. 

LeeAnn Rick's Coconut Sugar Cookie Bars

Ingredients

For the Bars:

• 2½ cups flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup coconut oil, soft
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 TBS sour cream
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Frosting:

• 5 TBS butter, softened
• 3 TBS milk
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut, divided 

Instructions

1.        Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

2.        In a medium sized bowl, combine your flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3.        In a large bowl, cream together your coconut oil and sugar for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.

4.        Add in your egg, sour cream, coconut, and vanilla extract and stir until combined.

5.        Slowly add in your flour mixture while stirring until everything is combined. Dough is crumbly.

6.        Press the dough into a greased 9x13 baking pan and spread out evenly.

7.        Bake for 14-15 minutes until edges are barely a golden color.

8.        Allow to cool completely.

9.        Meanwhile mix together your butter, milk, vanilla extract, coconut extract and powdered sugar for your frosting until nice and creamy. Fold in about ⅓ - ½ cup of shredded coconut into your frosting.

10.     Spread your frosting evenly over the top of your cooled cookie bars.

11.     Sprinkle remaining shredded coconut evenly over the top.

12.     Slice into squares and serve.

Working with Refugees

We have heard a lot in the church lately, both in General Conference and in our recent Stake Conference, about how we should be helping refugees in our communities. Kim and Sara have started mentoring a refugee family and have had some great experiences so far! We will be keeping up on the blog some of their experiences (and photographs!) with this wonderful family--talk to them if you are interested in getting involved! Here is Kim's insight so far:

The MuMu family had lived in a refugee camp for over 5 years before applying, being carefully screened and finally accepted to come to the United States.  They arrived on May 23, 2016 with very little except the clothes on their back. Their family consists of Pah Da, the father,  MuMu, the mother, Pah Say, daughter (15) Htee, son (13)  Saw, son (5).   Through the Lutheran Community Services Program, they are given a place to live and are helped by a caseworker for three months.  During this time they are expected to take ESL classes, find employment,  enroll their children in school, figure out public transportation, learn to get to the grocery store, learn about banking, pay bills, and learn American ways.  It is overwhelming for most families at first, but with time and mentoring they come to understand and adjust to living in a completely different culture.  Sara and I go each Tuesday evening and spend a couple of hours with them. 

 This Tuesday was Htee's 13th birthday.  We decided to throw him an American Birthday Party, complete with hats and banners!  We're not sure they loved the hats, but they were good sports about wearing them, at least for the picture!  We took pizza, watermelon, cherries, cookies and ice cream for dinner.  We found out that they have a cousin who speaks English and lives nearby so we invited her as well. (She made things much easier for our second visit!)  The pizza was enjoyed by everyone of course, but what we didn't expect was their generosity in providing us food from their culture.  We were a bit nervous, but plunged in and tasted everything they made.  It was great!  We really did like it...which surprised us both!  We gave Htee a new soccer ball and bought new flip flops for the whole family (thank you Fred Meyer for having them at 50% off!)  Sara purchased a couple of games she thought might be fun to play...Chutes and Ladders and Spot It.  They were huge hits!  It was tender to see Mom and Dad interact with their children while learning a new game!  We enjoyed our cookies and ice cream although we think American cookies are a bit too sweet for them right now!  We left them a bunch anyway!  We also took them quilts, of course, which they seemed to love!  When it was time to leave they gave us hugs, so we think they like us!  We sure like them! 

Ways to Help This Summer

Although we are officially off-duty for our stake humanitarian Tuesday morning service days, we'll be back up and rearing to go in the fall, so we have lots to do to prepare! There are still several ways that you can help this summer to make our humanitarian efforts easier in the fall!

1) Donate money-- we don't have a budget, so we need funds to keep our projects running! If you can donate, even $5 will help! Simply fill out a paper tithing form, and where it says "Other", write in: "Sew Much Love, Auburn Stake Humanitarian" with the amount. (This won't work if you put it in the Humanitarian section or if you do it online)

2) When you're on vacation, pick up travel size shampoos, soaps, etc. at hotels! These are PERFECT for our hygiene kits! Tell your family and friends to gather the free hotel samples and bring them in! Here is a picture of some of the kits we completed this past Tuesday, donated to the Auburn Food Bank!

3) Summer is a great time to clean and organize your house! Why not go through your fabric? In the fall, we'll be making Halloween and Christmas quilts, so if you are able to donate any fabric, we would be much appreciated! (Any fabric will do, of course, even if it's not Holiday themed!) Also, keep your eye out for summer sales on sheets and fabrics and feel free to pick up some for the cause!

4) We are looking for people who can sew quilts (pillowcase!) We have lots of sisters who come and help in other ways, but we can get bogged down and back logged if we don't have enough sisters sewing quilt tops. If you need instruction, we'd be THRILLED to teach you how and you can make them at your own time at home during the summer. This will help immensely in the fall when we're back in business!

5) Invite your fellow ward members and friends to join our FB group "Sew Much Love" or follow our blog! Then they can see upcoming posts during the summer and get excited about serving in the fall.

Happy Summer!

Mother & Daughter Event

Thanks to everyone who came to our last Sew Much Love day  today before our summer break! We got a lot done, had some great treats, and had a great time! 

LifeCenter Visitors

This past Tuesday, we had our usual humanitarian project volunteer work, but we had visitors from LifeCenter Northwest! We have been working with their organization for a few years now, and we love partnering with them! If you want to know more about what their organization does in detail, feel free to read about it on a previous post. 5 of their staff members came to see how we operate, to sew with us, and to have a big Hawaiian Haystack lunch! They were so grateful for all of the work that we put into our quilts for the families with whom they work. It was also so great to have so many volunteers (double our usual number!) and to share what we do with others in the community. Thanks to everyone who came and participated! It was wonderful to see so many faces and accomplish so much!

The official pictures are coming soon, but here are the amateur shots that I got quickly: 

Arlene's Testimony

Yesterday during our ward's testimony meeting, Sister Arlene Housman got up and spoke about how much the Lord has helped during her time helping with the Stake Humanitarian projects. She bore her testimony about how when you are serving the Lord, He will make it possible to do what you are trying to do, even when it seems hard. 

She shared a few examples: Because Sew Much Love is based off of donations, we don't have much of a budget. We were in need of new shelving units for the materials in our closets at the Stake Center, but had no money to purchase expensive lumber. One day, Arlene was driving and saw a pile of lumber outside of someone's house with a "Free" sign. She rushed home and picked up her husband and her truck to go and retrieve the lumber. She said that it was a huge amount of lumber and wanted to make sure it was actually free, so she knocked and asked. The man had done some construction for a business, and this was the leftover lumber. He used what he needed, and set the rest outside for any takers. Arlene was so thrilled to find this much free lumber! The pieces were large and would make perfect shelves for our humanitarian closets. This would've cost a lot of money, but because Arlene was in the right place at the right time, the lumber was free. The Lord truly provides for those are seeking to help others and do good.

Arlene also shared about how she helps gather the materials for the hygiene kits for the homeless. Whenever she is running low on something, whether it is travel sized shampoo or soap or whatnot, someone always seems to call or drop off a donation at just the right time. It always seems to work out in the end. Once she also got a call from a hotel that had a donation of 500 used washcloths, which was a huge donation. When we serve the Lord, things fall into place, because it is His work and His children we are serving. 

I was so thankful for Arlene's testimony. It can be hard work to serve our fellowman, whether it be our time or our talents or financially, but when we seek to do hard things for the benefit of others, the Lord will always guide our efforts.