The orphaned girls stood silently as the brown-paper parcels were opened, their eyes widening as they began to think maybe this was something for them.
They squealed with delight when colorful new dresses were handed to them to try on.
“The kids are all smiles,” said Ann Mitchell, executive director of the Baptist Union of Zimbabwe. “The materials used are a constant cause of amazement. They will last for ages, even if they are pounded on a rock in the washing process. The designs are so very different from anything seen here. What a blessing!”
Zimbabwe has been battered by economic collapse, political turmoil, violence and disease in recent years. A cholera outbreak in late 2008 killed more than 4,000 people and sickened at least 10,000.
But those numbers are small compared to the ongoing AIDS epidemic, which has killed millions across central and southern Africa, leaving countless children orphaned.
Getting the dresses delivered to the impoverished areas was made possible by Southern Baptist representatives who partnered with staff from Baptist Global Response (BGR). Paid for by Baptists across the United States through their state conventions, the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board, 600 dresses were delivered to Zimbabwe.
The dresses themselves, however, came from the hands of Addilene Leonard, a member of Maple Springs Baptist Church, Louisburg, N.C.
Her small drapery workshop sits beside her hillside house on Highway 56 near the outskirts of Louisburg, but from here, Leonard has seen a world in need — and responded.
Making 600 dresses would be a big assignment for even a good seamstress, but Leonard is a sewing-machine master.
An active 87 years old, she operated a drapery business for some 50 years. Her drapes, designed by her and stitched together by her six workers, still hang in many homes and offices around the area. She even sent custom drapes to other states and as far away as Canada and Greece.
The big shop is closed now, but she still has her smaller basement sewing room with a big work table and the four types of sewing machines required to make drapes.
Leonard has always blended her business with her Christian faith, often traveling on missions trips with her sewing machine in hand so she could make and donate drapes and curtains.
After being inspired to help make drapes and curtains for Camp Mundo Visa, near Asheboro, N.C., during the Woman’s Missionary Union meeting there, she went on to make window treatments for offices and cottages of Kennedy Home, part of the Baptist Children’s Homes of North Carolina; LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center, near Asheville, N.C.; and churches in West Virginia and Vermont, among others.
Leonard is modest about her life’s work and spurns any praise but allows that she has indeed had an interesting life. “I haven’t sprouted any wings yet,” she said with a smile.
When Leonard’s husband, Q.S., retired in the 1980s, the two traveled some and went fishing. But after he died in 1988, she dusted off her sewing machines and kept busy. “I’m not one to sit around all day watching soap operas,” she said.
Making drapes was an artistic expression for her, not just work, she said. She even took up painting and turned out canvases good enough for local churches to sell for missions projects.
Her rambling house is filled with travel mementos and framed inspirational verses.
Leonard descends the steep steps to her sewing room carefully but spryly for her years. She insists on staying active. “I’m 87 years old but that has nothing to do with my outlook on life,” she declared.
Leonard is determined to stay positive and says that will help her “beat the odds.” It’s important to live as a reflection of God who made you and follow the Ten Commandments and the commandment of Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself, she said.
“Your life is a product of what you create. I pray I’ll be productive till the day I die,” she said. And so far, she is.
And those 600 dresses?
That was just part of what she made over the several months she was focused on making dresses. She actually made 1,335 dresses. The others went to Haiti, another poor country where a new dress can light up faces with smiles. (BGR)
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