Kent Lutheran Church program to help South Sudanese women, girls

Published 6:05 pm Friday, October 6, 2017

Kent Lutheran Church hosts an informational meeting about its Nyaboth project, which will help women and girls in South Sudan, at 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, at the church, 336 Second Ave. S.

The project is inspired by church member Nyaboth Tongyik Tut, who grew up as orphan in Africa.

The mother of four, student and nursing aide recently decided to get involved in the church’s South Sudan Community Restoration Program to help people understand the problems in Africa.

There are several projects inspired by Tut’s vision:

• Days for Girls craft hygiene kits are being sewn and assembled by sewers and non-sewers from Kent Lutheran, Kent United Methodist and others from Auburn to Bellingham. The goal is to assemble 150 kits. A group meets at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays through the end of October, and other days as coordinated.

• Assembling school kits, which include basics like pencils and pencil sharpeners, single subject notebooks and drawstring backpacks, like those found on the Lutheran World Relief website at lwr.org/wp-content/uploads/SchoolKit_DrawstringBackpackPattern.pdf.

• Making clothes including dresses like the Little Dresses for Africa with sleeves at nancyzieman.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Little-Dresses-for-Africa_a.pdf, Britches for Boys like the ones shown at littledressesforafrica.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Nancy-notions-britchesforboyspattern.pdf and pajamas for orphans.

The church is accepting donations of fabric (good quality quilt cotton or cotton flannel in bright colors/cheerful patterns), elastic, women’s underwear, washcloths, hotel size bars of soap, zip-lock bags, drawstrings for hygiene kit bags and T-shirts.

Cash donations can be made at facebook.com/1097475513721987 or through kentlutheran.org/ by selecting South Sudan and indicating Nyaboth Project in the comments.