The Story Behind the Sitina Dolls

Halfway around the world, an African widow sits at a sewing machine in her hut.  It's in this place that she not only lives but works to support her family.  My sister-in-law visited her sewing shop, saw her workmanship and bought a flip doll from her that depicts a Nigerian woman on one side and a western white woman on the other and she called it her "friendship" doll.  My sister-in-law immediately thought of the illustration of a birth mother and an adoptive mother joined together by the love of their child.  It reminded her of a poem she had hung in her adoptive son's room when he was younger titled . . .  

A Tale of Two Women

Once there were two women who never knew each other
One you do not remember, the other you call mother.

Two different lives shaped to make yours one
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.

The first gave you life, the second taught you to live it
The first gave you a need for Love,  the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name
One gave you the seed for talent, the other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears
One saw your first smile, the other dried your tears.

One gave you up, it was all that she could do
The other prayed for a child and was led straight to you.

And now you ask me through your tears
the age old question through the years,

"Heredity or environment, which am I the product of?"

Neither my darling, neither,
Just two different kinds of Love.

So she shared this with me upon her return and said this would be such a great way to help adoptive mothers share with their child(ren) about their birth mothers and how both families are joined together in love!  I love that through the purchase of one of these dolls you an help a widow AND an orphan.  James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." NIV