Thursday, February 6, 2014

Stuck in Time

I see people my moms age and wonder what she would look like today. Twenty years have passed and she is still frozen in my mind as 38 years old.

Would her butt have continued to have a little extra padding that the little bean pole was JUST starting to get when she was 37 years old? I don't think so, she didn't like that we noticed and she began walking to get rid of it.

Would her hair be all gray? Maybe some.

Would she have chosen to color it? I don't think so, she was pretty low maintenance.

Would she have kept her hair long? I can't imagine it any other way.

Would she smile to know that my daughter likes to have her hair braided like Laura Ingalls? Just like I used to. I think so.

Would my heart skip a beat to watch her hug and love on my children? I hope so.


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Many Hands OCC Soap Update

My last post I was feeling overwhelmed and I whined a lot.

God heard my heart and sent help in a BIG way!

We are still able to get beef fat from a local supermarket for FREE. And I have a volunteer, my good friend Kathy Boldt, to pick it up, sort and trim off meat bits. Then I pick it up from her to grind up with my sisters massive grinder. Then I drop the ground fat off to my "render ladies". My dear friends Joy Allen and Jill Bolhuis. I then pick up the rendered tallow ready to be turned into soap!

This allows me to focus my energy on making the soap and keeping up with normal life.

I also have volunteers lined up to package soap once it's fully cured/evaporated.

To date we have made 536 - 1 oz bars of soap for the project. The money is all in for making 3,000+ bars of soap with money to spare.

Then today God shocked me with TWO more donations of a sizable amount. $50 each. Now that our oil is free, larger molds and loaf cutter are being made and donated to me, discount on a bar cutter, and all the ways God has met needs.  I only need to buy lye and packaging meaning we are able to make the soap for around 2-3 cents a bar. So the extra $100  will make it possible to make around 9,000 bars total. TRIPLE my goal!

This is all dependent on the continuing steady supply of the FREE beef fat.

Keep your prayers coming. As long as there is money to buy lye and packaging, free beef fat and people to help render it into tallow... I will keep making soap for OCC.

God is so good!