She lives together with some 7 other relatives, adults and children, in a rented, one room space. They move from room to room, year after year, depending on the affordability of the space.

In the year past, she has become a baptised member of the local church.

We have designed a product specially tailored in terms of size and color to accommodate her sewing constraints because although she is a talented embroiderer, she can only handle smaller pieces of embroidered work for short periods of time because of the malformation of her hands.

You will be amazed by her work.

We will tell you when those arrive. Look out for our embroidered Journals and Bible Covers. She will a be part of the team sewing those up.

In the past year of drought, the well in her yard that supplied water for her family’s drinking and cooking needs never ran dry.

Her crops seemed to be doing well and her livestock as well. Healthy cows, clean pigs and fat chickens all. This is in stark contrast to her neighbor whose dog, pigs and even chickens had died.

She freely gave away the bottled water supplied to farms by the government because she had more than enough.

This is pretty great too ….. in a time of drought.

Full of contentment and joy, she spoke only of how much her God had supplied and of how “full” she was. Financially secure from the profit on the sale of her pigs, she had adopted a daughter (now 7 months) when the baby was just 3 days old.

When asked how many pigs and chickens she had at the moment , she replied, “None”. She explained that this was because low prices for live poultry and pigs, coupled with unusually high feed prices, made breeding commercially unviable. And so, for the time being, she is spending her days caring for her baby and sewing handicraft in between.

With one more year on our handicraft program, Little Stream looks well on her way to financial and economic independence right where she is in her community.

Another “exceeding abundantly” story from a God who is able to do and provide exceedingly abundantly beyond that which we can think or ask.

It was also a bad year for farming. The drought was so bad the government told the people not to plant and started delivering bottled water to farms. Xiao Zhang’s supply of water piped into her home (from a nearby spring) ran dry and they had to travel for about 1 hour every day to get water for their needs.

This would normally have translated into improverishment for Xiao Zhang and her family. Not enough food because of a lack of crops. No cash for school; no oil and salt for cooking because of dying pigs.

But – lo and behold – once again, exceedingly abundantly beyond that which we could have thought to ask, God was at work.

When we got to their farm in the village, we saw that their house had a new wing, and that there had been renovations to existing older rooms as well. Xiao Zhang’s own ground floor room had been renovated to include a huge loft, their new bedroom and no signs of lack were to be found.

It turned out that Xiao Zhang’s husband, being a naturally a good handy man builder sort of person, had turned his hand to building new farmhouse wings for his neighbors in a time of drought.

In urban terms, it would appear that God had sprouted a nascent business arm for the family; a sustainable building construction concern that’s generating cash and provision for them – in drought and out, with or without pigs ; in addition to the traditional farming activities, they already had.

Truly God knows what He is doing and had it all planned out way before and beyond any of us could have imagined.

Lydia is also expecting. The baby is due in May and the event will most likely be in their usual village home delivery way.

We are so happy for her and for how God has restored to her a place in her community**.
Actually, I think she should change her name to

We just got news from the village that Little Stream successfully sold her second batch of pigs and is now breeding her third. She makes over Rmb 2000 per batch and we are overjoyed with her success.

We understand that she and her husband have adopted a child and are looking for shop space to start a business.

Her friends report a new found generosity about her as they witnessed her buy a chinese duvet/ blanket for a new handicapped friend (a paraplegic) who just joined the handicraft program. Thankful for the opportunity to be able to help someone else, Little Stream now looks at life and herself through very different lenses.

We have been given privileged seats to see Little Stream run her race of life and blessed to see the transforming power of God’s word at work through the years.

Each one of us were deeply impressed and encouraged to find the ladies on the program no longer on the verge of destitution; more confident of themselves, carrying a living faith in their hearts and hungry for the Word.

Little Stream has made improvements to her husband’s family home. The dirt floor and walls now have a coat of plaster and a few modest pieces of new furniture. Earnings from her handiwork have allowed for these little “luxuries”, made her the proud owner of 2 pigs, a growing brood of chickens and nearly enough savings in the bank to build a house of her own! Most important of all, inspite of her disabilty, she is thankful for her gift of sewing, natural genius for colors, her place in her family and a husband who. in her very own words, “treats me very well”.

Lydia now runs a little shop front selling haberdashery and fabrics. Though it is a struggling enterprise, and may indeed not succeed, she is nonetheless able to keep her children fed and in school, participate actively in her local church and help others in her community who are finding themselves struggling to survive, just the way she was a few years ago. Lydia has become the administrator for this handicraft program in the village.

Xiao Zhang’s brood of pigs have gone through intermittent bouts of disease. She battles tremendous fear whenever a piglet from a new brood dies and memories of hardships past, flood her soul. However, she has a fighting faith and a growing trust that her family will be well no matter what because God is with her. The handicraft program continues to help them through such seasonal downturns.

We were impressed also to encounter changed mindsets and attitudes. Much less afraid of change, we observed the ladies persevere to succeed when faced with new tasks. They understand the need to improve and expand skill sets. They work with much cleaner hands, through this continues to be a challenge because water is not as readily available as in a modern city like Singapore. And, they have also developed eagle eyes for quality control and spotting product defects.

We know that God has a Purpose for each one of them. Plans to prosper them and to each one a future and a hope. By His grace and plan, they have become fit athletes in the race of life and running strong.

The profits from the handicraft program was used to support Beautiful Wind through one year of school on the following conditions:

The support would be for one year only subject to review at year end
To qualify for support in subsequent years, Beautiful Wind would have to show year on year improvement in her grades. We advised her that it did not matter to us if her grade was a failing one. As long as there was improvement, we would continue our support.
She had to leave the program once her family’s finances recovered sufficiently
The speed and magnitude of the results of the scholarship assistance surprised us all as Beautiful Wind started to improve in her studies and in the course of a year found herself among the top students in her class.

It was a such great blessing and encouragement to see this and we continue to be amazed at what God can do with a few loaves and fish.

About two years ago, Xiao Zhang came onto this handicraft program because her family had lost their entire pig brood to an infectious disease and for several months struggled to survive amidst tremendous financial difficulties.

The money she earned from the sewing helped tide her family through the difficult times and grow her pig herd again. This took time as they lost their new broods to disease repeatedly.

However, as you can see from the photo above, taken the last time we visited in late 2008, she had a healthy stock of pigs in the pen. To the best of our knowledge they are doing well and her family is slowly coming back onto their feet once again.

She will continue to sew for the program for a little while more. We are praying for her and with her as she seeks to discover God’s Purposes for her life.

Little Stream’s only source of income was to embroider ethnic items for sale to her own community of poor farmers with no access to city markets for their produce. When we first met her, she often went to bed hungry and barely scrapped through from year to year.

A talented embroiderer, the handicraft that she sews for the program has helped her gain some financial independence and increasing respect from her family. Although her financial condition has improved a fair bit already, she is still far from economic stability.

Today Little Stream dreams of saving up enough money to build her own house. When once she had nothing, today she owns a small brood of chickens and has a constant source of fresh eggs.

We are praying with Little Stream to discover God’s Purposes for her because we know that that is where she will prosper, flourish and experience the stability she seeks for her life.