Together with Grace

Sharing God’s love with African women

Libreville, Gabon · since 2013

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Two women sew side by side at their machines, electric fans keeping the workroom cool
A seamstress in a red printed dress holds scissors at a cutting table laid with paper pattern pieces
A woman in a beaded headwrap smiles while sewing teal fabric on a machine
Rolls of wax-print fabric fill the shelves of a Libreville shop behind a group holding shopping bags
A woman holds up a piece of green fabric to show a colleague seated at a sewing machine
Food is served at a table set with bread rolls and fried cakes on a wax-print cloth
A woman smiles at the camera while working at her sewing machine
A woman holds two matching handmade dolls with yellow yarn hair and teal wax-print dresses
A woman guides pink fabric under the needle of her sewing machine
A woman smiles beside an open Bible on a wax-print tablecloth
Five people stand arm in arm, smiling, in the sewing room
A woman in a red shirt holds up two stuffed dolls in progress

Thirteen years along one thread

2013

In June 2013, Vicki Quellhorst was called to ministry in Gabon. One trip became fifteen, and a life’s work: teaching sewing and business, side by side with Gabonese women, with God’s word woven through every day of it.

Daily

A day at the center begins with praise singing and prayer. Then the machines start: sewing lessons, business and financial training, marketing, repair. At midday everyone shares a meal, and prayer requests are shared every day. The women carry one another.

A woman at the center smiles beside an open Bible on a wax-print tablecloth
A trainee smiles at her machine while sewing an orange stuffed animal

2023

The center is run by Hands of Grace Ministry, our Gabonese partner. In November 2023 we formed Together with Grace, a 501(c)(3), so churches and sewing circles here in the United States could stand behind the work there.

Today

The work now rests on many hands: a small board in the United States, and volunteers who sew, make jewelry, or know business, traveling with us on short-term trips to teach alongside the women at the center. Every lesson points at the same end we pray for: women launching businesses of their own and teaching the next generation of women to do the same.

The story continues: on the next trip, at the next machine, over the next shared meal. Meet everyone involved →

What a dollar becomes

Giving here is not abstract. Apart from card fees, every dollar goes to the work. Unless you specify otherwise, your gift covers these recurring costs:

$100

A month of lunches for the 25–30 women at the center

$100

Sewing machine and iron maintenance and repair

$500

A month’s rent: two sewing rooms, a kitchen, an office

$175

A month of electricity, water, and internet

Give

News from the work

A few times a year, Vicki writes home to supporters with news from the center and the trips.

Read the letters

Be part of the making.

Give toward a month of lunches or a month of rent. Or, if you sew, make jewelry, or know business, come with us on a short-term trip.

GiveCome sew with us