Sister-Link Projects

Baby layettes provide link to Russian women

Vitamins for nursing mothers. Infant drops. Baby shirts, pants, and socks. Receiving blankets. These essential supplies sent from women in Southeast Conference have arrived in the Tabasaran area of Russia as one of the pilot Sister-Link programs initiated by Mennonite Women USA in 2002. Each layette included a photo from the U.S. giver along with a short greeting for the Russian woman who will receive this gift.  

Working with Southeast Mennonite Women president Rebecca Sommers, service worker Alice Shenk received the layettes in Russia and shared them with women through the local birthing center. Alice then sent greetings and a picture back to the woman in Florida or Georgia from the new mother—fostering the relationships at the heart of this new MW USA ministry. 

“According to the local midwives, women’s health is declining,” Alice said. “It is always helpful to provide vitamins for pregnant women and new mothers and babies. Life is rugged and hard for the women in this region. These gifts will help to encourage and support new mothers and celebrate birth with joy."

Through Sister-Link Southeast Conference women discovered the joy of being both givers and receivers. “When I opened the mail and saw the pictures, I was just thrilled,” recalled Esther Mills from Bahia Vista. “I saw how they wrap the baby – like swaddling clothes.”   This Sister-Link concluded in 2004.

Among other Sister-Link projects completed or currently underway:

• A Sister-Link relationship between a women’s group in Tanzania and a women’s group from Weavers Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., has deepened through the exchange of e-mails, prayer requests, and photos. And in the fall of 2005, their partnership resulted in a quilt which sold for $4,100 (!) to benefit HIV-AIDS ministries and other work in Africa.  (Read the whole story.) Sister-Link has been “an opportunity to think beyond ourselves,” notes one Weavers member. “To have specific people [to relate to] has been really neat.” “We've become sisters,” another says simply.

• Women in Gambia have begun connecting with women from Cedar Street Mennonite Church, Chambersburg, Pa. One part of this Franklin conference Sister-Link is the development of a soap-making business for the Gambian women. Pictured are women from Cedar Street plus Denise Williamson of Eastern Mennonite Mission, the communication link for this relationship.

•   A "House-Warming" Sister-Link delivers homemade wall-hangings and words of love to the recipients of new homes built by Mennonite Disaster Service.  

•   After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, women from 14 states made 170 prayer shawls for women of Gulf States Mennonite Conference.

•  Women in Atlantic Coast Conference linked with Mennonite Central Committee to support the development of Emthonjeni Kehila farm in South Africa. Emthonjeni (which means “Fountains of Life”) provides food, pastoral care, medical linking, education, and support systems to people with AIDS. Under the leadership of Flo Harnish (pictured at right), $37,000 was raised for this need.  Flo visited the facility with MW USA president Elaine Good and MW USA executive director Rhoda Keener following the 2003 Mennonite World Conference assembly (see our MWC photo album).

•  Women in Indiana from Church Without Walls and Yellow Creek Mennonite Church continue to relate to each other and support the Emerge women's ministry of Church Without Walls.

•  Franklin Conference women marketed beautiful handwoven gifts by Threads of Hope, a Guatemalan weavers' cooperative.

•  Take a look also at the beautiful story about a Sister-Link that connected college students with Tanzanian women with AIDS from the Mennonite Church USA News Service.  Another article was written by the Elkhart Truth in Indiana.

Here’s how to contribute to Sister-Link ministries.