Our New Friends and a New Venture

Last July we welcomed our new friends, an Afghani refugee family, to America. The past 7 months have been one of the greatest blessings of our life. It has been amazing to get to know them and recently we have begun work on a project to help this family to use their skills and talents to become self-reliant.

Turning lemons into lemonade. When their power was shut off for several days in October because of a mix up with their bills we spent a fun evening eating donuts by lantern light. 

At Christmas time we went with our volunteer group and our family downtown to see the lights at Temple Square.

As we were leaving Temple Square Mike explained to them that the buildings we'd visited, the temple and the tabernacle, were built by refugees many years ago when they settled here.

With no men to help provide for this large family, we knew it would be a more difficult challenge for them to support their family. While the oldest daughter of the family was able to get a part time job at Walmart, the mother was not having any luck finding employment because her English was progressing so slowly. As we came to know the family more, we learned that the mother and her oldest daughters are highly skilled seamstresses. The mother was so skilled she could make a dress from just looking at a picture and getting some measurements. When we discovered this - Mike hatched an idea.

One thing we've learned over the course of Jessie's high school experience is how hard it can be to find suitable dresses for dances. Especially if you want something unique and/or something modest. What if we found a way to link her skill with the demand for dresses that we see. We wondered if it could work. We posed the idea to the family, who enthusiastically agreed. We wondered how they would be able to acquire the quality machines that they would need if they were to really make this work. We wondered how best to structure our venture. As we worked these things through in our minds and made it a matter of prayer,  things began coming together, the solutions presented themselves and the way opened up.

Our first step was to ask them to make a dress for Jessie, and the daughter of some friends who were willing to join us in the venture. The only machine they had to make the dresses was one from Costco that was generously gifted by my old friend, Wendy. Not a professional machine, but in the hands of a master...

Here they are adjusting the sleeve on the dress they made for our friends' daughter

Part way through their work on Jessie's dress an Afghani man, a neighbor and friend, took it upon himself to purchase a professional grade machine for them with the understanding that they would just pay him back as they were able, without any time frame attached. He has become one of our best resources, showing up to translate complex ideas, facilitating, researching and helping us stay connected. A humble, quiet man - here in the U.S. because he was an aid to American troops in  Afghanistan.

Here they are at work on their new beautiful Juki machine

With those first few dresses under our belt we put the word out that our refugee friends were making dresses and the first real orders came in. We're still working out our process and streamlining as best we can for now, but I think we're onto something. We have felt guided every step of the way.

We are calling our new venture, "Panah" - which means "refuge" in Dahri (their language). We hope to move things forward enough to help employ other refugee women, all here without husbands, to be able to support their families.

Our love for them grows. I jokingly call the mother my little sister, because she is a year younger than me, but she is my elder in terms of experience and strength.  

I'll keep you posted.

The Sports Page

Here's a wrap up of some of the kids' various sporting endeavors since last summer.

Bingham Football - Tillman is the biggest sports fan of all time. That's settled fact. And football is his favorite. His first day of tryouts he made a point of showing up in an Alabama t-shirt (because he likes to represent) which got him noticed right away by one of the coaches (who is from Alabama and was also wearing an Alabama t-shirt). That was a good thing since right after that Tillman was diagnosed with a hernia and was unable to hit for the rest of try-out week - and had to sit out a lot. Fortunately, that first impression stuck and Tillman was drafted onto a pretty good team. He had a dream season, eventually settling in as starting free-safety (defense), and was outstanding. They won their division championship. It was super fun.






Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Following the championship game

With Grandma and Grandpa after the championship

Here's his coach talking about him at the team banquet. Tillman had the time of his life!

Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Grace decided to try Cross Country this year at her school. She had a great year! She solidly the number 2 girl on the Providence Hall girl's varsity squad. She was super tough! And somehow, while gutting it out, always managed to look sweet and cute. :)








Noble's knee injury turned out to be a torn meniscus. So he was was unable to train or race for two months.

He worked with a physical therapist every week. We connected with her over cross country since her boys also run, so we got to meet up at all the big races for the rest of the season where she would check up on Noble.

When he finally returned to racing he was advised to take it easy and keep it to a 6 min mile pace, which he disregarded. His knee held up but the triple digit temperature almost did him in. Mike had to help him walk to find shade.

 He had another set back soon after returning, twisting his other knee at a large invitational race. Luckily, that was not serious and the physical therapist cleared him to run again.

Bingham CC had a good year with several sophomore boys taking the lead on the team.

The future of Bingham Cross Country - sophomore speed-machines

Region Champs

Getting his post-race hugs...


We had the entire Cross Country team over for dinner and Mike roped in our neighbor, Andrew Brewer, a Bingham mile record-holder and BYU runner, as the evening's inspirational speaker.


It was way fun to watch him race at state.

(You should have seen 91 year old Grandma Tiede jogging all over Sugarhouse Park chasing the pack!)

And then there's Noble's other sport, long boarding...


He and his bff put together some pretty great videos. Here's one from their day at the Daybreak Downhill competition.


Jessie played a little football herself this fall...at the Bingham powderpuff game. It was Juniors vs. Seniors and unfortunately the Juniors dominated. (I'm pretty sure that one Junior girl that scored all the points was actually an NFL plant.) It was fun to hang out as a family at Ron Thorne field and cheer her on. I think Jess probably could have won it though, if there was a prize for trash-talking.  ha ha.


Jess wasn't able to ride very much this past summer because her horse was lame. When Grandpa got home from his mission she was so happy to take a trail ride with him again.


And that's the sports news.

Six Months Later...

I have totally gotten out of the habit and have not kept up blogging. I had to look here the other day to find a video that Sully wanted to see and I realized what a treasure of memories we have here. I didn't want the rest of the story to be undocumented. So, I will try to keep with it. Keep on keeping on.

To make an attempt to record everything that has happened over the last 6 months would be impossible. I am reminded of the words of the prophet Mormon, "nevertheless, they cannot all be written in this book; yea, this book cannot contain even a hundredth part of what was done among so many people in the space of [six months]" (the "six months" is my addition) (3 Nephi 5:8). 

So, I thought I would compose a few themed posts to cover the highlights.

Today's installment: Reno-with-Roy Update

 

Roy prepping the concrete floor.

Sealing the stained concrete

I love it!

Testing out the movie screen  (we're missing the patio this time of year).

The painting of the basement

Finally getting rid of the butterscotch color

Paint makes such a difference!

Painting the baseboards

While replacing baseboards we found out why the girls' room is always so cold in the winter -  previous owners slapped the drywall directly onto the concrete wall on the east side in their room. Now we have another project...

Finished baseboard in the game room (the room previously known as the vampire room). Roy is a fine craftsman. Those corners are so precise I hardly had to calk. 

Next on the punch list: new door trim, build a linen closet (converting the closet on the left in the picture above), and new carpet.

Summertime at Lightspeed

Literally, if you blink around here you might miss an entire season. So, for the record:

* This year the little boys and I decided that we would make Fourth of July shirts. Sully created this design (which of course Abner wanted to duplicate once he saw Sully doing it). I thought they turned out nicely.

* Stay-cationing ... Seven Peaks, long-boarding Provo Canyon, Mountain West Burrito

Noble snuggling up to his giant burrito.

 * Jess had an impromptu photo-shoot with Dolli.  Here's one of the pics. Pretty girls.

* Girls camp 2016 - JR Property. 

The A-Team. Backpacking with the 4th years. 

The Bishop captured this sweet moment with Grace and her posse on their sunrise hike.

*While the girls were away at girls camp Sully was introduced to the dusty world of Cub Scout Camp. In the days leading up to it he could hardly contain his excitement. He was in heaven with all the Cub Scout pomp and circumstance, the silly skits, the adventure...This picture says it all.

* Mike and I celebrated 19 years of marriage. Dinner at Log Haven and a quiet walk in the woods...

*Jess and her homie, Cassie took their first solo-road trip (also Cassie's Senior trip) to St. George last week. They weren't entirely on their own since they stayed with Mike's parents. They had a packed itinerary: swimming, a show at Tuacahn, shopping, hiking in Zion and a visit to the temple. 

* Meanwhile... Noble spent an eventful week in Lake Powell with the varsity scouts. Lots of sun, water, food, fishing, a trip to the emergency room in Price (not Noble), tire damage, and food poisoning (also not Noble, thankfully). Noble came home with a torqued left knee (excusing him from two weeks of XC workouts - in lieu of real running, he was prescribed "aqua-jogging" at the rec center pool) but with plenty of great memories. He'd go back in a heart beat.

* Reno-with-Roy has picked back up again after a brief hiatus (i.e., all our camps and Roy's camps).

They poured the concrete foundation for the spiral staircase which was installed earlier this week...without a handrail on the top landing - (what the??!). Apparently they have to do it that way so they can measure after the staircase is installed. Then they manufacture the railing. In the meantime I have to keep an army of neighborhood children off this shiny new death trap. It should be completed Monday. Wish us luck for a safe weekend. 

* We finally made it official -  Noble's Eagle Scout Court of Honor was held this past Sunday.

I wish I had taken the time to get some better pictures of Noble with family members and his leaders. Thanks to Mike's dad for getting some and sharing them with us.

Grandma came sporting her own boys' Eagle Scout pins.

One of the best parts of the Court of Honor was the color guard - all brothers of the Eagle candidates. There were two older, already Eagle Scout brothers who directed, two scout age brothers (including Tillman), and two Cub Scout age brothers, which including a very earnest and excited Sully, who prayed the night before that he would do well helping with the color guard especially because he was just 8 years old. He took his duty seriously. I wish that we had taken a good picture of the group of brothers together. By the way, Sully only bumped into the wall and ceiling a few times, and nearly missed dragging the flag of Utah through the food on the table on his way out. But as people moved to help him,  he refused, determined to do it on his own. It was awesome!

* For a few years I have felt drawn to do something to help with refugees, but I didn't know what to do. When I watched the Women's Session of LDS General Conference this past April, I felt that my prompting was validated and now I had a direction in which to go. We signed up a few months ago through Catholic Community Services to volunteer with newly arrived refugee families. We attended the meetings, went through the background checks and recently we were assigned, with other members of our group. to an Afghani family with a mom, grandma and 5 kids. They arrived last week. Already this has been an awesome experience, especially for the kids. When it was time to meet them at the airport I wasn't sure if I should bring all of our kids, but decided to bring them (all but Abner). I was so glad that I did. When the family, speaking no English, stood there shaking our hands a little nervously, it was the sight of our children that put them at ease. They smiled, walked up to each of them and kissed their cheeks. Grace said it was the coolest experience ever. We are assigned to help out for up to two years with this family. I'll keep you updated on the process.

Life is good.