Archive for January, 2013

Hello there, this is Penny the Clothespin Doll writing!  Thanks for visiting my new site!

I can’t wait to share my adventures with you!

The idea for this website began back in October when we had a visit from the Fields.

Phil and Gale are long time friends of the family and have worked in Indonesia for 30 years translating the Bible.  They completed the New Testament in a tribal language and are now working to translate into the national language.   See more about them at www.oreoplace.wordpress.com.  Their daughter Rachel was able to come too.  She is preparing to become a full-time missionary in Tanzania, Africa!   Becky introduced them to me and showed them some of my scrapbooked travels, asking that if an opportunity came, would they take me on a visit to Indonesia, and Tanzania too?

They enjoyed seeing the pictures of my travels and suggested that rather than taking me to Indonesia, Becky could make up a dozen dolls like me who would be my Cousins.  They would travel on to Indonesia and meet the people there and send word back to me about their adventures!  My job would be to create a website where we could collect their pictures and display them for others to see! 

Wow, this is going to be so much fun!!

So I helped Becky begin to make more little clothespin dolls like me…

After painting on their faces and feet, Becky gave them a coat of varnish.  Aren’t you glad you humans weren’t created this way?

Next came the hair and clothing…

I was allowed to help pick out the fabrics and the pretty trimmings of lace and ribbons.

Becky said that my stitching is improving and that I was a good helper! 

To each dress we added the five color beads that tell the Gospel story.  What is neat about these beads is that they can tell the Gospel in any language!  To read the bead story, see Penny’s Beads,  and then check out Manik-Manik Penny to see if you can read it in Indonesian!

Now these cousins of mine will be ready to be little missionaries themselves!

 Becky gave us all a lesson on where Indonesia is by showing us the Atlas and pointing out a large group of islands located on the equator above Australia.  Wow, that’s really on the other side of the world!

Since it is usually about 80-90 degrees and humid down there, I thought I’d give these girls a taste of Real New York Winter before they left.  I was so disappointed that we didn’t have deep snow at the time, but we hauled Becky out with her camera to take our picture together in the bit of snow we did have. 

Now, you don’t know it from this sunny picture, but the temperature was only 5 degrees out there!  With a wind chill of ten below!  Now that’s really cold!!  Becky and her camera were quickly getting stiff, but the temperature didn’t bother us any!  See our snowmen?

And so the time came for them to leave and say “Goodbye”.

Farewell, my friends, God bless you!!