The Village Center

The Village Center is an apartment in the Villages at Lamar apartment complex that three churches rent together. It is not a big space (it's only a 1-bedroom apartment) and it is not glamorous. There are often Cheetos smashed into the carpet. The bookshelves need to be reorganized. The lamps tilt at wonky angles. But it is one of the most beautiful spaces I have ever entered.

Almost two years ago, those of us at Westover Hills who work with refugees began meeting people from two different churches, Austin Stone and Hope in the City. The refugees we were friends with were all living in another apartment complex at the time. We kept running into the same people, these American faces in the living rooms of our Burmese, Burundian and Iraqi friends. When a crisis hit, we exchanged phone numbers and e-mails and banded together to help our friends. We found that these Christians were the kind of people whose hospitality ran deep, who were adaptable and flexible and creative. We had no ideas about their doctrinal stances on minor issues, whether we agreed on worship styles or what their buildings looked like. Instead, we knew them because of how they loved.
 

When many of our refugee friends moved to a new apartment complex, Villages at Lamar, these three churches set up a meeting place in the neighborhood. The apartment came together within a few weeks (which in church administration time is like a nanosecond). We share the space. On Monday nights, Hope in the City helps the area kids with homework. On Tuesday nights, it's Westover Hills. Austin Stone has all kinds of groups in and out during the week. Our fourth of July and Halloween parties were unbelievable. We've handed out Christmas gifts the last two years--there's been a line out the door of the 1-bedroom apartment that has made people in the community stop and stare.

Hill Country Hill Tribers meets every other Monday morning at the Village Center. The front room is our classroom and meeting space; the back bedroom is the kids' play area, where our children love on and play with their Burmese friends. Simone and Maizie are fascinated by Htoo Hti's missing front teeth. Two of the Karen babies are a month younger than Gabriella and we've loved watching them take their first steps together. We prayed in tears for the country of Burma when the election was tearing apart the country. The prayer was in Burmese, but we shared their pain in that tiny living room.

So often you hear stories about how churches do not get along, how they're fighting over tiny divisions. The Village Center is an example of what happens when churches forget what separates them and work together for the sake of love. The space may be small, but the impact is limitless.

The Story Behind HCHT

When we began this blog, we were in the middle of preparing for Artreach, our flagship event in November. We have run told some of the stories of our artisans and hinted at who we are and what we do, but we want to take time in the next few weeks to fill in some of those gaps. To begin with, let me introduce who I mean when I say "we"--Caren George and I (Jessica Goudeau) are co-founders of HCHT along with our families and our dear friends. We're the ones who blog on this site and run the daily operations at HCHT. I'm the Educational Development Director and Caren is the Marketing Director, but we both just do what needs to be done. I tweet most of the time (twitter.com/hilltribers) and Caren teaches a great ESL class many Mondays. So far, we are volunteering our time and not getting paid. In her real life, Caren is an amazing graphic designer and copyeditor (as you can tell from our website and all of our media stuff). I'm a PhD candidate in Inter-American Poetry at the University of Texas, working on my dissertation and teaching an English literature class. We've slowly folded HCHT into our lives, learning when to have boundaries and when to rush into crisis (that's another post). We have husbands that are co-parents with us of our small children--Caren has Maizie and Anderson, I have Simone and Gabriella. Our oldests are both four, our youngests two. Our kids are growing up alongside their Burmese friends (also another post).

Jenny Rich and Erika Pierson have founded HCHT with us, are on our board of directors, and share with us in all of these relationships. The four of us have put on Artreach for the last three years to have a place to sell the bags. Caren's husband Jason's official title is Man behind the Curtain. My husband Jonathan is our Jonny-on-the-Spot. They do everything from watching kids to running events. Jonathan's mad spreadsheet skills have kept us afloat since Caren and I are good at many things, but not math. Meagan Brown comes every Monday and is a friend to us and the refugees. Her many years of refugee experience have given us valuable insight and blessed all of us immensely. There are others whose involvement with this has been critical (the Brimberrys and Fran Patterson chief among them). And of course, I'm not mentioning the many Burmese artisans and friends whose relationships are the key part of this work. Their stories we're going to tell in the next few weeks and months to come.

HCHT is not a traditional non-profit. The bags are kept in the closet in my spare bedroom/playroom. We don't have an office and we certainly don't oversee volunteers. We have asked a few people to come and share with us in the relationships we have with our artisan friends, like our intern over the summer, Mary Poole. We are committed to growing sustainably and slowly, always watching our artisans to make sure that they are central to what we're doing. The people who work with us enter into the chaos and flexibility of the refugee experience. People who feel uncomfortable being in their homes or want to be more structured than adaptable probably would not fit well with us. Our artisans' lives, desires, needs and wants are the basis of HCHT. If they left tomorrow or lost interest in selling their products, we would fold HCHT gently away. This is for them, not us.

I want to be very clear--this is not really a story about Caren and I and our team and the work we are doing. This is a story about what we have learned from these beautiful women. We have made some mistakes over the last three years. We have been humbled by their resiliency, blessed by their perseverance, amazed by their humor, touched by their desire to give back to us, taught that sometimes we need to receive from them in order to maintain the equal friendships that we all value. In the next few weeks, we'll write about how this work began, how things have changed in the three years that we've been an official organization, and many of the things we've learned from our friends. We'll also give some clear idea of the structure of our time with the women: what the Village Center is, what we do in ESL class, how we pay them and keep the bags straight (which is quite a feat, let me tell you!). Mostly we want to share with you the beautiful story that is being acted out in all of our lives. It is amazing how people who share a common love can overcome language and cultural barriers to live their lives together in a unique community. To me, that is the greatest story of HCHT.

Jewelry Contest

We started the year off with a bang at Hill Country Hill Tribers. After a break for Christmas and New Year's, it was great to see the artisans again. We were amazed that they braved the 30 degree weather to come meet and, as always, it was great to play with all the cute babies again. 

 We love these women and it's so fun to laugh and be together again, even if we're often laughing at our lack of communication! As always, our beloved Dr. Salai translated for us. At 83, he is still one of the sharpest and wittiest people we've ever met.

One of our goals for 2011 is to introduce some new products. We have been concentrating on bags in the past, but we'd like to explore jewelry as a new product line. We want to continue to connect to the women's cultures and traditional art while making things that are current and marketable. To do that, we're committed to using the up-cycled materials that help our products be responsible and sustainable.

So we're holding our first ever jewelry-making contest! If there's anything that we've learned working with our artisans, it's that they are amazing and creative women. Rather than showing them what to make, we brought in several examples jewelry and asked the women to be creative.

We're focusing on fabric-covered beads that will combine up-cyled cloth with elements of their weaving and the way they twist the thread in the traditional hill tribe bags. 

 We gave the women supplies and asked them to come up with some prototypes. They took a long time looking at the examples and pictures. They divided up the beads, fabric and other supplies.

 Stay tuned for results here on the blog. We'll hold the contest on January 24 and later this month, we'll have a chance for you to give us feedback here and on our facebook page. We can't wait to see what they come up with!

A Season of Hope

In the days leading up to Artreach, someone approached me about the event and said that a friend of theirs wasn't coming because she didn't believe that the profits would actually made it back into the hands of the artisans who made the products. I was a little dumbstruck. And sad. It stuck with me that whole week, the thought of how easily cynicism can take hold of our lives and our ministries. 

Cynicism breeds inaction. If you're a cynic, you think, "The world's corrupt. Nothing works. Why bother?" I know this because I've been there and still struggle with those thoughts from time to time. In Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne returns home from a summer spent alongside Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta and begins working at one of America's largest megachurches. He writes, "Sometimes I just got cynical. That was the easiest thing to feel, as cynicism takes very little energy." 

His words were convicting. It is easier to see what's wrong in this world than to do something about it. In fact, a whole bunch of things are wrong with this world and they break my heart. But as Christians, we have a larger view. I ran across this anonymous quote recently, "Sometimes I would like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustice when He could do something about it, but I'm afraid He would ask me the same thing."

We don't follow an inactive God. He is alive and active through His church, which is His body, His arms and legs. And cynicism has a crippling effect on what His body can accomplish in this world.

The antidote for cynicism? Hope. Simple (but often hard to hold on to) hope. Dr. Salai, HCHT's beloved translator, has become a hero of hope in my life. His story humbles me. In 2001 at the age of 73, he stood in his academic regalia (he has a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in agriculture) in a one-man protest against the oppressive regime in his homeland of Burma. After decades of working to improve the lives and welfare of Burma's ethnic minorities, he stood up to the powerful government. He was promptly imprisoned and sentenced to 7 years in the notorious Insein Prison. While in prison, Dr. Salai staged a hunger strike in order to have access to his Bible. After 18 months of tireless efforts by his family, he was released. Dr. Salai has had a lifetime of experience from which to grow cynical. But he is one of the most hope-filled people I know.   

In the pamphlet he shared with Artreach visitors, Dr. Salai writes, "In  fighting injustice, there should be no neutrals. The neutrals are with the oppressors. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Many people have taken up arms to fight injustice. But there is another way to acquire democracy peacefully. I believe that prayer changes things."

As we enter the Christmas season, the word "hope" is thrown around ad naseum. After a while, it loses meaning. This year, I'll be reflecting on eradicating cynicism from my life. And replacing it with real hope, real action in the face of injustice, and real faith in the power of prayer.  

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

Romans 12:12

*****

On another note, thank you to all who came out to Artreach this year. It was another wonderful day of celebration of ministries and artisans from all over the world. Thanks to your generosity, we were able to give paychecks to 18 women this month. They are small amounts in the world's eyes, but they make a big difference in the lives of these families. Thank you!

Caren

Holiday Shopping

If you're looking for places to buy fair and direct trade gifts this year, let us recommend these groups. We'd love for you to link to this list or tweet about this post!

Hill Country Hill Tribers
Hill Country Hill Tribers provides supplemental income and marketable skills to artisans in Austin’s refugee community. By weaving and sewing, these women are creating a new sense of community in this country while remembering their homelands. Proceeds are given directly back to the artisan who made each piece.

Noonday Collection
Noonday Collection offers inspired accessories handcrafted by artisans who receive a living, fair wage for their work. We believe that you shouldn’t have to sacrifice good design and style in order to support fair trade ventures.

The CDK Project
The CDK Project is empowering oppressed women around the globe through employment in the craft of jewelry-making. We are instilling dignity and hope, while bringing you authentically rare jewelry.

Eternal Threads
Eternal Threads is dedicated to improving the lives of women and children most at risk by providing sustainable livelihoods through income generating projects. Eternal Threads began as an outreach to India, but now includes projects in Nepal, Afghanistan, Thailand and Madagascar.


Freedom Stones
Freedom Stones is committed to eliminating and preventing human trafficking through livelihoods projects that transform and develop vulnerable communities. Our aim is to transform individuals and entire communities so that they can begin walking in their God-given destinies free from extreme poverty, oppression and injustice.

Makarios & Dominican Joe
Makarios is a faith-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to educational development in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and other impoverished areas of the world. We are committed to a child’s spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual growth, to provide hope for a better future.


Ethical City
Ethical City collaborates with faith-based organizations in Austin to host fair trade global bazaars. Ethical City’s products include baskets made by a widow’s cooperative in Ghana, jewelry from India and Afghanistan, metal work from Haiti, and gift cards made by orphans in Rwanda.


The Kibo Group
Beads sold by the Kibo Group are made of recycled paper by Ugandan women who are seeking to reach up and out of poverty. The Kibo Group helps facilitate development and job training in the remote Busoga
villages. Your purchase helps rural African women have hope for a better life.

Village of Hope
Village of Hope is an orphanage in Ghana for orphaned, abandoned, destitute and needy children. These products were made by students at the Vocational Training Centre, where street children are taught employable skills to help them leave the streets. All proceeds go back to supporting Village of Hope in their mission to provide a better life for these children.

Hanna Galo
Hanna Galo is a refugee from Iraq who has been working hard to establish a new life in Austin during the past year. His handcrafted beaded crosses are more than a hobby—it’s his mission. When people look at the crosses he makes, he wants them to remember that there is a God who is with them, even in the toughest toughest of circumstances.

(If you're interested in purchasing Village of Hope bags or Hanna Galo's crosses, e-mail us at karenhilltribers@gmail.com and we'll try to connect you with the right people.)

Artreach New Product Giveaway!

Hill Country Hill Tribers is gearing up for our flagship event:

 

You can read the stories behind each of the amazing vendors and learn details about the event itself at ArtReachAustin.blogspot.com. 

In order to spread the word about the event, HCHT is giving away three of our newest up-cycled products, all made by Hser Kuq Moo and Ku Lo, our most proficient sewers. They've been working so hard and a lot of time the weavers get all of the attention, so we wanted to feature the work of these two women and tell you a bit more about them.

Hser Kuq Moo and Ku Lo are pictured above (and yes, Ku Lo's shirt says "Lefties Do It Right"). They are both members of the Karen hill tribe. They each have two small children, though Ku Lo is pregnant with another baby due in January. They manage to make beautiful, meticulous products at home while their husbands work as housekeeping staff in local hotels. Though Hser Kuq Moo's mother Law Gay (also one of our artisans) taught her how to weave, Hser Kuq Moo would much rather sew. In the last few months, with the introduction of some of our new products, both women have been able to contribute to their families' incomes and support their young children (and even a couple of friends living with them). To celebrate Hser Kuq Moo and Ku Lo's hard work, we're giving away three of their latest items.

Product 1: Rice-Cycled Bibs

Made from up-cycled rice bags, these baby bibs are as cute as they are functional. They're an adorable way to help your baby go green! They normally retail for $8. (With all three of these products, the ones pictured will not necessarily be the ones being given away. Each HCHT product is unique and if you win, we'll give you some options to choose from.)

Product 2: Rice-Cycled Pouches

These up-cycled rice bag pouches come in a variety of different sizes and no two are alike. The Three Ladies one pictured above is my absolute favorite! The sizes and prices of these vary; they make great stocking stuffers and can be used for pencils, make-up, or anything small and portable.

Product 3: Burlap Tote Bags

Made from up-cycled burlap sacks from Third Coast Coffee, these tote bags are fashionable and practical. They normally retail at $22. They're big enough to slip in a laptop or some books; they have a clasp at the top and a small pocket to keep things organized. Each bag is lined with different fabrics which add to their individuality; they're a great way to express yourself while helping the environment and supporting our artisans.

To win one of these products, leave a comment on this blog saying that you have done one of the following things:

1. Facebook: Invite friends to the Artreach Festival from our Facebook event page (Leave us a note and tell us you're coming, too!). Make sure to tell your friends about this giveaway so they can enter. 
2. Blog: Put information about Artreach on your blog (we'd love to see the links!).
3. E-mail: It's old school but it counts! Send your friends the link to the Artreach blog or Artreach event page and invite them to come. 
4. Twitter: Tweet the Artreach blog or Artreach event page (and while you're at it, sign up to follow HCHT on twitter!)
   

The contest will go on from Tuesday, November 9 until Tuesday, November 15 at midnight. Leave a comment by then with your name and what you've done to help us spread the word! (And if you live outside of Austin but want to register to win, find a creative way to tell other people about HCHT and we just might count it.) We're excited to see many of you at Artreach this year; the weavers and sewers will be there and you might get the chance to meet the woman who made your new item. The weaving demonstrations alone are worth coming for, but the products available from around the world are truly amazing. So even if you don't win, come to Artreach and you'll feel like you did!

Tribal Losses

This Saturday, I spent the morning with people from the indigenous tribes of North America and the afternoon with people from the indigenous tribes of Burma. I had never before made a connection between the two.

I grew up with a close friend who was a descendant of the Ojibwe people. Her family brought me along to cultural events and powwows and I saw how native american traditions were incorporated into their weddings, prayers and everyday life. I witnessed a stronger relationship between nature and spirituality, and a stronger connection to God as Creator and Jesus as the Way. I also discovered that there is nothing in this world more delicious than a Navajo taco served on homemade fry bread.

I've been meaning to share a powwow experience with my family for years, but kept missing the boat. This Saturday was a beautiful introduction. We were able to witness an opening ceremony where all of the dancers entered the circle. The announcer shared the history behind of each group of traditional dancers. There were elderly Goard Dancers, many of whom where veterans of U.S. wars., fringy Grass Dancers, swaying Buckskin Dancers, and my personal favorite, the Northern Fancy Dancers (pictured above). Us northerners sure know how to do it up fancy.

But as the ceremony came to a close, I couldn't help but get a little teary. I looked down and saw hundreds of people with beautiful regalia, each one unique, each one representing a different family or tribe, each one representing loss. It was a reminder that Native Americans weren't (and aren't) one group of people, but hundreds of tribes with thousands of unique cultural traditions, many of which have become tragically extinct.

The women of Hill Country Hill Tribers represent a vast array of cultures and traditions as well. In our meetings, we've slowly learned not to expect common language, even among members of the same tribe. Dialects among the Chin people vary as you travel from one valley to the next. Some tribes wear red for ceremonial dress, others yellow and others green. Weaving and farming were central to the hill tribe way of life for many of the women we know. During a recent interview, Ko Meh (at right) pointed to her cement patio on her second floor apartment and said she missed the soil. My heart is heavy with all that they must miss--extended family, childhood haunts, village traditions, dirt. And I worry about the weight on their shoulders as they struggle to pass on their tribal language, traditions and customs to a younger generation surrounded by the deafening cultural influence of American media.

I can't wait for Artreach. It's a time to celebrate the work of hill tribe artisans and help them incorporate their ancestral home into their new one. Like this weekend's powwow, it will be a colorful demonstration of intricate artistry and beauty. Bound up in the beautiful strands of thread on display that day will be the bittersweet sense of what has been lost and the hope of keeping age-old traditions alive.
-Caren