Young girls around the world are receiving dresses and the message that God loves them thanks to Oro Valley Church of the Nazarene's "Dress a Girl" sewing group. What originally started in 2012 as the passion project of a small group of women at Oro Valley Church of the Nazarene has grown to 100 people strong.

According to the group's leader, Sandra Moore, the Oro Valley Dress a Girl group has made over 15,000 dresses that have been delivered to girls across the Africa, Asia-Pacific, Mesoamerica, and South America regions. Moore notes that it's the first time some children have ever received or worn brand-new clothes.

"The children love it," Moore said. "It's a big event. They each get special attention. We put the dresses on over their other clothes, make them feel special, and then pray over them. It's heartwarming."

The team began in 2012 after a couple of the church members heard of the Dress a Girl Around the World organization, with whom Oro Valley works. Initially, the church made the dresses and sent them to a local distributor, who found missions teams worldwide to send them to. However, in 2018, as the quantity of dresses and the team grew, they were challenged by the church's then missions pastor, Bill Graham, to take the dresses themselves through missions trips organized by the Oro Valley church.

The core team of 100 meets monthly with Moore, who shares highlights of the church's distributions on various missions trips around the world. Together, they pray for each other, pray over the dresses, and continue sewing. The group is intergenerational and consists of young adults with kids and retirees.

The church also began a sew-a-thon, held annually on the first Saturday in November. In 2023, over 400 women from around the community and church participated. Moore said some sew-a-thon attendees have joined the church, thanks to the activity. In a single day, the group puts together more than 1,500 dresses.

"The ladies there working are the happiest," Moore said. "They're thrilled to be part of something bigger than themselves."

Despite being a member of another church in the area, Lee Ette Jungblom attended last year's sew-a-thon and brought her entire quilting group along. She said they have already blocked out 2024's date to make sure to participate again.

"To be a part of something so beautiful for the Lord and these sweet children we were sewing for is overwhelming," Jungblom said.
According to current missions pastor David Hillis, missions are at the heart of everything the Oro Valley church does. He estimates 400-500 people from the congregation will go on a missions trip in 2024, spread out over 14-15 different teams. Their passion for missions comes directly from the church’s mission statement.

“If we’re not engaging people right where they are with the gospel — locally and globally — if we’re not empowering our people to be the ones doing that, then we’re not going to continue to be a church that thrives,” Hillis said. “The moment we turn inward and we focus on ourselves and what we need and not focus outward, we’re gonna slowly start dying as a church.”