Aiming for the Jewelry-School dream!

Many of you know I'm going to Jewelry-making school this year to become a better jeweler for my ministry! If you want to know more about it and how to help, here is all the information!

Why:

-The mamas are ready for new techniques, and so are the people that I'll be teaching in other parts of the world in the future! My dream is to use Techniques and materials that suit the culture I spend time in. The Pemba mamas' coconut techniques would be so much more professional and beautiful with metal and stones! And the next place I believe God is calling me to will be Asia, which has a lot of metal and stone resources!

The mamas are waiting for me to return with new techniques to learn - they have all been praying for me excitedly and have said, "Make us all pretty rings while youre there!" 

- The government in Pemba is also asking for more certification from Iris volunteers, and getting a certification in jewelry-making would likely make it a lot easier for me to get a Visa next year!

-God has been speaking to me since last year about THIS YEAR being the year to go to school. Ive had prophetic word after prophetic word saying, trust Him for changes and new huge things to have faith for in His provision, Ive had words about it being a season for me to get new tools, learn new things, and eat from the table of foods that Ive been preparings and serving to others! Very neat metaphors saying that it's time for me to learn!

When! And How to give:

I know He always makes a way for the promises He gives, and I truly believe He will make a way for me to be there NEXT MONTH (Oct. 13th). Right now I still dont have all my tuition costs, or plane ticket to get there. At the moment I'm lacking something like 6,500 dollars. This burden is not on you or me, it's on God. But if you hear Him saying to give towards this, I am happy to see that being one of the ways He provides for me to get there.The way my life is set up, it's hard for me to save much money or work for long periods of time. Ive managed to save a litle, but I still need a lot. 

Another way to help is to be praying that I get the scholarship that I applied for! 

- You can donate through Paypal to tcierpke@gmail.com, or push this handy little button to go straight to the donation page:

- I am selling paintings of my mommas, and am also happy to be hired out for odd jobs if you need some gutters cleaned or gardens weeded (if I can arrange a way to get there)!!

If you are buying a painting through paypal, please contact me through email and I will mail it to you!! The prints I will frame for you and I'm suggesting about 15 dollars, the small original paintings Im suggesting for 50 or more, and Im working on some bigger originals that Im suggesting for about 200 dollars. 

Back story:

For 7 years I've had the dream to learn Metal Jewelry-making, ever since I took a college course in Florence, Italy through a Study abroad program and fell in love with the technique. It was an "aha" moment when I saw that this form of creativity suited my passions and talents perfectly and seemed destined for me to learn! 

I was going to go to Revere Academy in 2009, the year after I graduated college, and learn amazing Metal Work techniques, but I didnt have enough money, and didnt get the scholarship I applied for. At the same time God was speaking in huge, incredible ways about loving poor and hurting people, and He spoke to me more clearly than Id ever heard before about me being someone that was made to GO to third world countries. 

I put my Jewelry School dream on pause, and I WENT to the poor! I then, ironically, began teaching Jewelry-making to widows and ladies who had been abandoned by their husbands over there in Mozambique - and the desire to do metal never left, but has grown stronger. God has said Now is the time and Im going for it!

I hope that my life smells nice.

Ive been thinking about sacrifice. I was singing a song the other day to God: "Youre worthy of it all", and the words were becoming so real to me - My daily challenges and sacrifices came to mind and I could say,with tears in my eyes, that He is worthy of all that Ive given and done. Thinking through the sacrifice of distance from loved ones, deaths of Mozambican friends and their children, cultural confusions, hurts, and misunderstandings, floods, worms in the toes and parasites in the tummy, ants, rats, and snakes, heat rash and sunburns, power and water-outages, lonely times, overwhelmed-by-people times, missed

opportunities for work and doing or eating "normal" American things...He is worthy of all that I do and I do it because I love Him. Being in the middle of the place He carved out for me and my talents, and pouring my love out for Him in the ways He perfectly created for me is all I want to do. It hurts and isn't fun sometimes, but it fills me with such joy to think what my life must smell like to God, with the sacrifices it includes.