Last Saturday afternoon, the Powerhouse Women’s Ministry hosted an event celebrating women in the township running small businesses of their own.
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.—Proverbs 31:30
In Powerhouse style, the event kicked off with worship and a devotion, which I had the honor of giving. I spoke on the Proverbs 31 woman. The idyllic woman portrayed in this passage is not only a wife, mother and keeper of house but is also a capable business woman. In fact, she owns property, has hired help and is completely trusted to manage the affairs of her husband and family. She is industrious, tireless and charitable; but above all, she fears the Lord, which is her greatest attribute and was thus the main focus of the message I shared.
On tables set up in the overflow space of the church, ladies (and even some men) had the opportunity to promote their product or service to an interested crowd that grew larger and larger as the afternoon went on. Among the products featured were jewelry, cosmetics, handmade shoes and clothing, dishes, Tupperware and winter apparel. One of our student-teachers, Peter, manned a table featuring the small business development class that the Powerhouse now offers, so I’m pleased to say that a number of women participating, who have been seeking more formal instruction on record-keeping or marketing, signed up that day to take the class next term.
The day’s entertainment was a fashion show featuring many of Gloria Nyathi’s beautiful bridal gowns, which are available for hire along with bridesmaids dresses (many of which have been donated by you guys!), lovely little flower girl dresses, shoes, veils and headpieces and anything else a woman would need for her special day. We transformed the sanctuary of the church into a fashion show runway, and with the help of her two sisters, many ladies at the church and all of us on the Africa Revolution team, Gloria prepared four rounds of dresses for 10 young ladies of all sizes who modeled them stunningly. Over the beat of dance party music, I emceed the event and had a blast introducing the models—Winnie, Brenda, Pinky, Prudence, Florence, Jabulile, Bella, Refilwe, Fridah and Tebogo—and describing the dresses: “And now, we have Refilwe, wearing a white satin Oleg Cassini designer gown with organza overlay, featuring a sweetheart neckline, A-line in cut and a with cathedral-length train.” (Somehow all the wedding gown terminology came back to me that day!) The crowd went wild every time, and the girls had the best time showing their stuff! I loved the fact that many of Nate’s photo students were in the crowd, and in true paparazzi style, they vied for the best spot possible, fighting back one another in good fun, to get the perfect shot of each model.
Nate had an area set up for a professional photo shoot, where he captured each model after coming off the catwalk. Equipped with studio lighting, Nate worked carefully with each model to strike poses similar to ones found in wedding magazines—the intent being to provide Gloria with a catalogue or magazine as a marketing tool for her business. Check out Nate’s photos and you’ll see for yourself how beautiful these ladies and the dresses were!
Throughout the afternoon, finger foods and desserts were available to the crowd, catered by two young ladies, both graduates of our business class, who partnered in catering the event as an exercise in sharing expenses and labor involved. Their collaboration was great, and I think they were both encouraged to find a partner in each other (in fact, together, they are catering another event for us this weekend).
The Women’s Business Expo felt like the culmination of a lot of great things we’ve been a part of this year. The highlight was working closely with Gloria (I remember standing in her kitchen back in August saying, yes, we should absolutely do something to promote your business this year), and seeing the event come together so beautifully in an all-hands-on-deck kind of way. To see graduates of and current students in our business class—alongside other women and men in the township—so encouraged by the opportunity to promote their business enterprise was wonderful.
It gave us joy to have all the various classes and people we interact with daily be involved in this event, like one big happy family, and to see how the things we are doing here are having an impact. We are trying not to think about the fact that our days now are numbered, but for every day between now and that time, we are appreciating our being here more than ever.
We just couldn’t miss the National Championship game last night, so we decided to watch it—live on ESPN at 3 in the morning! Will, Nate and I went over to the Nyathis’ house around midnight and were welcomed by UNC sweatshirts and T-shirts draped over the dining room table and chairs and, even better, Carolina blue sheets on the beds! With Mandla, the three of us woke up 10 minutes til tip-off and had a good time watching our alma mater secure its place as the #1 college basketball team in the U.S. We went back to bed around 6 a.m., satisfied and proud of our team but sad to miss the excitement on Franklin Street. Incidentally, the AR House was a house divided this year. To Annie and Rachael Dagani, both MSU grads: sorry about your team… there’s always next year…