Growing Pains

When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. – Deuteronomy 24:19

As I slowly began to feel better, I knew something had to change. I couldn’t continue at the same pace, and HeartCraft needed more structure, oversight and administration if we were to grow the way God seemed to be leading us. I realized I needed a team of capable leaders to share the load. Dewi was smart and hard-working, but she still only had a third-grade education. HeartCraft was growing too big and complex for her to manage alone. I was struggling with the cultural complexities and a growing family. We needed help.

Developing this business was a huge task. It was critical that we find educated Indonesian leaders who could handle both the modern business requirements of the project and the challenges of working with Kantoli people. It would be easier for them to say “yes” and “no” in a way the Kantoli could understand. They would know how to respond when someone wanted a higher wage for lousy work, and they could work things out if someone wanted an advance to buy a goat or rabbit. I started to pray specifically that the Lord would send capable help my way, someone who could take this thing and run with it.

As I recuperated, Steve helped to take up much of the slack. He saw tremendous potential in the project and encouraged me from the beginning. Even though he was busy with a million other responsibilities, he studied the operation and came up with some plans.

Steve figured out that streamlining the process would allow us to expand more quickly and help more families. We needed to decentralize our operations and, at the same time, build in some systemization and specialization. Why not use the rented house in the city to assemble prepared packets, complete with pre-cut quilt pieces, patterns, batting and backing? Then we could distribute packets to cooperatives in villages all over the province. That way, the villagers didn’t need to leave their homes and come to the city to work. The work could be delivered straight to their locations. Each time someone took packets to a village, he could inspect the items the workers had already completed. They would be compensated for the finished products, which would then be brought back to the city for sale.

I thought this was a genius idea. A well-run production hub in the city could provide work for hundreds of people in the rural areas. Trained workers under good supervision could do the cutting and design work. Quilters in the cooperatives would need to be trained only in the art of hand stitching. Each village could even specialize in unique quilt patterns.

With the new expanded vision in mind, we constructed more quilting tables and placed them in our two main villages—Banteng and Pangon—where we trained many hand-sewers. So many people wanted to get involved that we were forced to turn many away. Each location chose a leader to serve as their representative and contact person for coordinating deliveries with the production hub in the city.

Completely unrelated to our work with HeartCraft, Steve was developing a friendship with a local Christian businessman named Yayan, who owned a couple of garment factories in Denalia. One day, he invited Steve and me to have lunch with him and his wife, Lydia, at their factory. I was glad for the opportunity, as I had never seen any of the factories in the southern part of town. We entered the large warehouse and saw a few hundred people working on sewing machines. I also noticed something else: scraps of cloth lined the walls of the building. They were leftovers from the jackets the workers were making.

As Steve and I shared with Yayan and Lydia over lunch about our desire to help the Kantoli people, an opportunity presented itself. I ventured a question, “What do you do with all the scrap cloth that I saw on the sidelines?

“I usually just throw it away,” Yayan replied. “Or sometimes I give it to the poor to stuff their mattresses.”

I could hardly restrain myself. “Would you be interested in donating your leftover fabric to a group of industrious people who are working in my home?”

“What are they doing?” he asked.

“They’re making patchwork quilts. They’re finding employment in my home, and I am selling the quilts.”

Yayan was amazed. “This must be a hobby of yours?”

“No, I actually have never made a quilt in my life. But God is doing an amazing thing. I know I need to help these people. This is more than a hobby. It’s a calling!”

Yayan seemed a bit confused as to how a non-quilter could be teaching dozens of unskilled people how to quilt, but as I explained it all, he and Lydia started to understand.

As a Chinese Indonesian, Yayan faced a cultural gap with the Muslim majority. In Indonesia, the Chinese generally held the money because they worked hard, and they worked smart. Education was very important to them, and they often sent their kids to private schools or even abroad.

Yayan had studied electrical engineering in California. As a committed and very generous Christian, he was eager to overcome some of the prejudices and barriers that so often hinder the spread of the gospel. He recognized that HeartCraft was doing just that. With a smile, he agreed to give me as many sacks of scrap cloth as I could possibly use! He was delighted to do so. In fact, he said it was an answer to his prayers. He, too, had specifically been praying for an opportunity to be a blessing.

Before I could thank him, Yayan went a step further. He offered to supply us with huge rolls of Dacron padding at wholesale cost! I could hardly believe it. Yayan’s factory produced winter jackets for export to the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe. The padding they used was exactly the same thickness that we needed to make good quilts. Yayan knew where to get this padding in large volumes at a wholesale price. He also offered to deliver it right to our door. That afternoon I returned home with a happy heart. Once again, God was performing miracles to bless our effort. It sure was nice to be working hand in hand with God!

I couldn’t wait to tell Dewi what had happened. Tears welled up in her eyes as I related my story. She knew this meant more cloth and more jobs for more people. Silently, I was adding one more important element—more opportunities for people to hear the life-changing message of God’s love for them.

“Doesn’t all this sound familiar to you?” Steve asked me later that night. “A wealthy man giving the leftovers from his business to the poor to help them survive in difficult times?”

“It sure does,” I replied without hesitation. “It’s the story of Ruth and Boaz!” Boaz instructed his workmen not to pick up any of the grain that they dropped during the harvest process. The poor would gather it and live off what they gleaned. Ruth worked among the gleaners. In fact, it was a part of Jewish law: “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands” (Deuteronomy 24:19). God’s instructions to leave crops for gleaners was a reflection of His heart for the poor. Our friend Yayan was a modern-day Boaz, deliberately giving his surplus so that the poor could have jobs.

For the growing HeartCraft family, Yayan’s generosity made a huge difference. We needed a way to process the new donations of scraps. Dewi quickly organized the workers into groups. A few ladies sorted the free scraps into piles by color. The men would then cut and machine-stitch the pieces together. The women in the villages did the hand-quilting.

As usual, we faced additional challenges. Some of them were even a little humorous. One major challenge was quality control. How were we going to keep the quilts clean? We were no longer making the quilts in the rented house in town. Now they were being made in far-away mountain villages where they had to be laid out on the floor while workers fastened together the top, batting and bottom. At any time, someone might sit or walk on the quilts. One of Dadang’s quilts, for example had brown hoof prints on it—the result of a goat marching across it. Other quilts had obvious cigarette holes in them, even though Dewi and I repeatedly forbade the men from smoking near the quilts. Almost all Indonesian men smoked. It was a show of manliness. “Marlboro Man” billboards were ubiquitous.

Still other quilts had tea and coffee stains on them. The island produces fantastic coffee, and the entire country loves tea and coffee. In the process of sewing on the machine or quilting, someone could easily spill a cup. Worse still, hot sauce from lunch might get on the quilt. Sometimes the pins that we used to hold the fabric together would rust in the humidity. Or the ladies who quilted would prick themselves with a needle and bleed on the cloth. Rust and blood were some of the most difficult stains to remove. We asked friends in the States to send stain removers, but we never seemed to have an adequate supply.

We established some rules and tried to drive them home. There was to be no smoking near the quilts or materials or scraps. Men must exit the building if they needed to smoke. Nor was there to be any eating near the quilts. If they were returned dirty, we would pay less for them because we had to spend a lot of time cleaning them.

Another problem confronted me. The selvage or edges of the uncut cloth often included the printed words, “100 percent cotton.” The quilters assumed that because the words were in English, they were sophisticated and important. So, they didn’t cut off the words; instead, they put them in the middle of the quilts. I’ll never forget the day I saw the words “100% cotton” right smack dab in the middle of a beautifully sewn Texas star quilt. I was horrified. To the quilter, the words deserved to be the focal point!

I had learned that it was better for me not to correct the workers myself, but rather to give my opinions to Dewi and let her handle things in a Kantoli way. This saved me a lot of time. She was a master at it, and it didn’t seem to drain her as much as it did me. I loved the people and didn’t want to offend anyone, but I was impatient and wanted things to move forward quickly without compromising quality.

It was all part of our growing pains. It seemed like every time I wanted things to go better or more smoothly, something would happen. It was a constant process of going a few steps forward and then a few steps back.

Two other major challenges we faced were the need for training and diversification. If we really wanted to do a better job and see this program reach a new level, we needed better training for our workers, and we needed to diversify the patterns. We had to get beyond squares, fans and stars. Dewi and I were exhausting our creative resources. Frankly, my own knowledge and quilting skills were severely limited. How could our workers get the training they needed? I certainly wasn’t going to be able to take them any further myself.

Jan Casey, my friend and mentor, met a woman who was an expert quilter. Linda Bauman lived in Colorado and her quilts had won awards and appeared in quilting magazines. When Jan told her about HeartCraft, Linda wondered if she might be of some help to us. I challenged her to come out and help me move the quality of our quilts to a new level. Linda was delighted. She had long wondered how the Lord might use her talent in quilting. We both recognized this was a divine connection and a strategic time for her to come—yet another thread in God’s plan.

Before she departed the U.S., Linda went to work creating samples from scraps of cloth in her sewing room. She sold some of her beautiful quilts to pay for the ticket to Indonesia, and she spread the word so that people would be praying for her.

Linda arrived in March 1993. I enjoyed her tremendously from the moment I met her. I would soon deliver my third baby, and it was difficult for me to move quickly and stand on my feet all day, but I had to. Linda was going to be with me for only three weeks. I unloaded all of my quilting challenges on Linda. She was ready to help! My job was to be the translator. We brainstormed about the best way to arrange a training program. News spread like wildfire through the HeartCraft staff that an expert quilter had come from America to provide training. Although every one of the quilters wanted to participate, we felt it best to select the 20 most skilled quilters. Later, they would be able to train others.

We set up big tables so that Linda could spread out her demonstrations. We got machines ready. We had an ironing board and cloth for her to use. We planned which patterns we would try to conquer each day. Dewi organized the trainees into groups. She would have loved to be a trainee herself, but like me, she was too busy managing the process. Translating all day every day for three weeks was hard work (especially being eight months pregnant). I was running on adrenaline so much that I did not see how my feet were swelling, but there was no time to sit and rest.

Linda came with amazing samples. Some of her ideas were beautiful yet simple to do. Still other samples were more for intermediate quilters. Then there were patterns for the expert quilters, such as appliqué, which required much more work and skill than a patchwork quilt.

Linda also brought tools that were not yet available in Indonesia: rotary cutters, cutting mats and rulers. To the trainees, it seemed like Linda could work magic. She taught us speed-quilting techniques. I will never forget the day when she taught everyone the Texas star, and they realized it wasn’t so hard after all. They were already stitching the Texas star, but it was taking them forever because they didn’t know the trick of cutting and sewing the pieces in long strips and cutting them on the diagonal, rather than in individual little pieces. We didn’t know the shortcuts. The appliqué projects were ideal for ladies who needed smaller projects to take home with them. The wedding-ring quilt was a challenge with its scalloped edge, but this too our trainees managed to conquer in short order. The wedding rings we had attempted in the past did not turn the corners nicely. We were on a roll!

I was sad to see Linda go when her three weeks were over. She had accomplished more than she would ever know. The designs she taught the HeartCraft workers would be repeated thousands of times over in years to come.

A week after Linda flew home to America, I delivered my third baby girl, Kelly Ruth. Kelly was a beautiful, big baby—nine pounds, eight ounces. She came rather easily, in just a few hours, although the medical staff broke her collarbone in the process. My mother arrived a few days before Kelly was born. Mom always liked to be with me when I was having a baby—not only because she was the proud grandmother, but also because she knew I needed encouragement and help.

Right before I went into labor, Steve heard about a good home for rent a few miles further up the mountainside where the air was a bit cooler and cleaner. The house was about the same size as ours, with three small bedrooms, but less expensive. Steve felt it might be wise to move a little farther away from the HeartCraft headquarters so that I would not burn myself out. I agreed that we needed some space. The day after Kelly was born, we moved. Steve and I always seemed to do things quickly. Certainly, just days after a baby is born is usually not the time a family decides to move, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. Besides, my mother was there to help.

On moving day, Steve and Mom mobilized all the quilters to become movers! It was obvious they were not professional movers. My mother laughed when she saw one of the men carry a single fork from the kitchen to the pick-up truck. I simply sat in a chair and told people what to do. That afternoon, when the baby and I arrived at the new house, there was a big pile of things on the floor. In a few hours, we were all organized and ready for a good night’s sleep—except that I had a newborn to feed.

The next day, we decided to make the house brighter by knocking out the back wall and putting in a screened porch. The landlord seemed excited for any improvements to the house, as long as it was done at our expense rather than his. A workman came with a small hammer and pounded on the wall for hours, trying to knock it down. Steve finally told him to speed things up by using a sledgehammer. Mom found it really funny. The Kantoli are rarely in a rush. They have lots of time, and the longer a project takes, the longer the pay is likely to last.

The repairs were a big help. The house had a lot of mildew, and the previous residents had been sick frequently. By opening the house to sunlight and fresh air, we were able to get rid of the mildew. And there was something else I loved about the house. Although it was smaller than the one we’d moved from, it had a garage. I caught myself thinking, Perhaps I could have a little quilting group in the garage.

There was a large mosque right down the street from our new house. It wasn’t just any mosque. It was well known in the city as being fairly radical, with an Islamic training school connected to it. Crowds, mostly young people, would go to this mosque daily, especially on Fridays. A thoughtful neighbor took me aside and told me that it might be wise for us not to let our girls play in the front yard for fear of what the extremists down the street might do to the children of infidels. That surprised me. Previously, I’d not felt any real danger from the mosques near our homes. This one seemed a little different, but we decided not to let it bother us.

After we moved in, we immediately set out to get to know our neighbors. This was always a very important first step when moving into a new community. We knew the routine well by now—we’d been through it a couple of times before. The neighbors would also need to get to know us. They would be curious about all the traffic as people entered and exited our home. A few early explanations would go a long way toward preventing wild rumors from spreading through the community.

One day not long after we moved in, we parked our car in the driveway after returning from an errand. The driveway was on a bit of an incline, so we always set the emergency brake as an extra precaution. An hour or so later, Steve and I heard a terrible noise followed by shouting in the street. We glanced out the window and saw a crowd forming. Steve called to me, “Look, Arlene, someone drove their car into the neighbor’s house!”

We went running outside to join the drama. Sure enough, a car had rammed through the front wall of the neighbors’ house into their living room. As we got closer, we realized to our horror that it was our car! Somehow, our old Toyota Corona had rolled backward down our driveway, across the street and right into the home of one of our new neighbors!

We apologized profusely and offered to cover the cost of rebuilding their wall (probably a $100 or so). This was one of our first introductions into our new community—a little crazy to say the least! We were thankful that no one was hurt, and it reminded us that we needed to slow down just a little.

Our move was hard for Dewi, but I knew it had to be done. As my family was growing, so also was the need to focus on the children. I sensed that if I would trust God and let go, He would take care of HeartCraft. After the busy pace I’d been keeping, I relished the quiet times alone rocking Kelly. It was fun talking with Mom and catching up on all the things that were happening back home—America seemed so far away now. As usual, Mom was an incredible help. This was her third or fourth visit. Even the immigration officials at the airport seemed to recognize her. Mom was learning some key Indonesian words, like yes, no, good and don’t. She became quite good at using sign language to communicate.

We now had three lovely, active girls. They loved life in Indonesia, and the older two had learned a lot of the language. They spoke it naturally with perfect accents. Kelly was an easy baby. Though we soon had some people working in our garage each day, it was good to have some distance between the main production center and us. They wanted more of me, but I felt for the sake of the ministry I needed to teach them independence. If I ever had to leave the country for any reason, they must be able to continue on without me.