The Story of the Christening Gown…

I got a call from mom: S (refugee) will be baptized in two weeks! Would you like to help sew a christening gown? We’ve looked in bridal shops and prom dresses, but that’s way too expensive, we can’t afford that.

Wow! What a special question – making a dress for such a special and important moment!
A lot of questions in my head right away: what do they expect? If they are already looking at wedding dresses and prom dresses, that takes a lot of time and is quite complex! What is their church culture? What is expected from their church? What does mother expect from me?

Finally agreed that I contact S to discuss things and cleared two days in my schedule to sew a dress with her. On Friday, S comes straight to her classes to us. Can we choose a pattern and draw it. Then Saturday morning to the fabric store and sew the dress for the rest of the day.

At least… that was the plan…
But as is often the case, a plan always go differently…
Friday I got a message: I can’t come tonight, we have an unexpected exam…
Ok, then we’ll meet in town on Saturday morning, I’ll take some pattern sheets, and we can go straight to the fabric store.

Saturday morning, she arrives at the agreed time, but she is exhausted. Turns out, they had a prayer night until 3:00 AM. And oh yes, I have to leave again at 15:00…
We quickly make use of what we can still do in such a short time. On to plan G, how many times have we adjusted the plan? Looking for white clothes in the second-hand clothing store: gone all morning, but we did it! Found a turtleneck, blouse and under dress.

And we can sew a skirt!
Straight to the fabric store where we look for a suitable fabric with a mixture of Polish – Russian – Ukrainian – English. The shop lady asked what it was for: a skirt to go into the water with, S answered.
The shop lady looks at me to see if she has understood correctly, thinks very hard and takes us to the department for water-repellent fabrics. Well no, that was not necessary, the skirt has to be worn in the water. She doesn’t understand! But we find a sturdy fabric, get some sewing supplies in another store and go home.

We choose a pattern, draw it out, cut the fabric and I put S to work behind the sewing machine. She’s never done that before! She works accurately and she succeeds very well!

And that she had to leave again at 3 p.m.… Well, that became 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and a few phone calls later, she stayed until the skirt was finished!

And she is very proud of her own work! “Do you make a video while I’m sewing?” she asks… “otherwise, no one will believe I made it myself!”