Refugee Mentors: Dyeing Easter Eggs!

Written by Luanne Bole-Becker.

I had a nice, low-key visit with one of our refugee families today.  I took over a dozen hard-cooked eggs, eye dye, an Easter basket w/ plastic eggs, stickers, and jelly beans, etc.

The whole family dyed eggs.  I showed them how to make them with stripes and plaids and by coloring on them first with a clear crayon.  The egg dye kit came with silly face stickers, hats, etc.  We all laughed a lot.

Turns out they all like hard-cooked eggs too.  The youngest child ate 3!!!  We had devoured them all before I left.

I showed them the pictures of Jesus in the “My First Easter” picture book…AND the pictures in that same book showing a family coloring eggs.  They seemed to really like that.  Between the picture book and their knowledge of their own Bible, I think they understood our tradition of dying eggs is connected with the celebration of Jesus rising from the dead.

Blessings were had by all.

Refugee Mentors: A Women’s Outing

The following post was submitted by Luanne, who works with both a Burmese and Bhutanese family.

February 27, 2009

My original hope for Friday evening was to take the oldest daughter in our Burmese family to the textile art show opening at the Cleveland Heights library so the Textile Art Alliance women could meet her and see her work.  The goal is to eventually provide her the supplies and equipment to begin weaving and embroidery here in the U.S.

I also made plans with two of the women from our Bhutanese family to accompany us, as they had shown me some knitting/crocheting work they had done.

I arrived at our Bhutanese family’s home at 6:00pm and it took about 20-30 minutes before we were all ready to go.  We first went to Pat Catan’s so I could show them where they could buy yarn.

We arrived at the Burmese family’s home around 7 pm. We could not communicate much.   It did become clear that the oldest daughter–whom I had hoped to take with us–was visiting her sister and wasn’t there.

We arrived at the Cleveland Heights library.  I spoke briefly with the head of the Textile Arts Alliance and showed her pictures of our one family member’s work.  She seemed most interested in the woven garment.

Our family members seemed mildly interested in the exhibited artwork.  It’s a little hard to tell what they’re really interested in, how they react.   They were looking closely at, and talking to each other about, some items.  I did have to tell them not to touch the pieces hanging on the wall (the “rules” of an art exhibit vs. a store…)

When we got back home, I stopped in for a bit.  They wanted to show me their typical attire in Bhutan/Nepal.  There was a beautiful short blue jacket, and a boy’s cap that displayed some amazing hand woven designs.

Then one of the women brought out an incredibly beautiful sari that her sister had given her when she left to come to the US.  She said that when her sisters arrive from Nepal, they will bring a sari for me to try!!!