Starting with a single
stitch to build a future.

Panamá is a developing nation. But if you walk down the narrow, crowded aisles of the corner grocery stores, you’d swear you were in the USA. $10 for a pound of butter. $15 for a pound of coffee. $8 for a chicken. $3.50 for a dozen eggs. 

And when you need to fill your gas tank, be prepared to spend $6.00/gallon.

And the schools, though all public, aren’t well-funded by the government.  There is no financial help for transportation, school lunches or books. Uniforms are mandatory, expensive and change every year, prohibiting families from passing uniforms down through siblings to save money. Transportation costs alone, for a single student, for a single week, can be as high as $50.  

And the daily wage for a Ngäbe worker? $25. 

Imagine trying to make ends meet when over a third of your weekly income goes toward getting your daughter to school. 

The Ngäbe are held in chronic poverty by a broken system. It is a crisis and it needs to change.

And while we can’t begin to think that our small efforts will make a national or even regional difference, we do believe that our small efforts can make a difference, even if its only to a handful of people.

That’s why, in 2022, we started an (very) small artisan sewing ministry. We started with a single sewing machine and a broken iron. Now, in a crudely renovated casita tucked in the banana trees of a local village, you’ll find three women busy sewing, praying for enough sun to charge the solar batteries so they can finish the day’s project.  

As of today, we are able to provide sporadic income to these women, based on the number of products we are able to sell to our limited markets. But we are working hard, alongside them, to create a more robust, reliable selling market, thus turning sporadic into consistent, and with the love of Jesus to guide us, despair into hope.

“But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.”  Micah 7:7

If you would are interested in making a donation directly to our sewing efforts or are interested in selling or purchases our products, contact us here.  We’d love to talk with you!

We’re slowly growing the business, in one of the local villages  are working hard to provide a sustainable supplementary-income to Ngäbe women with sewing skills.