Oh, Jennie Chancey, you're a disgusting human being

[Elle]

Fundifugee, would you might taking a stab at a living expenses breakdown for the time you were there? I think it's very telling that at best these women are being paid $240 a month if they work full time TODAY when $200 over two decades ago only made ends meet by having so many people in a home.

Right now I'm working on an entry about the Art of Manliness.

[No Fun My Babe]

No problem. I hope she and her husband get theirs.

[Anise]

Prior to that was a long post about how she had apprentices help design and draft the patterns, and how wonderful it was that she was giving these girls a chance to live with her family and do that. No one else has even been credited with designing or drafting the patterns aside from the Young Designers Contest winners. Let's just say that the work those apprentices was doing amounted to them doing most of the work. It's another part of why I can't stomach buying her patterns. Most of them were designed and drafted mostly by ghost-drafters who would live with her family and work for free. Yes, people actually sent their daughters to live with Jennie for a while as unpaid apprentices. I wish I had known about screen capping back in those days (around 2003, 2004), and had capped and saved this stuff. It's mind-blowing.

Fortunately, some of those girls have gone on to post about the experience:

blog.caseybrowndesigns.com/2010/02/guide-to-sewing-my-background/

She doesn't mention actually drafting the patterns, but she does say that she was mentored in exchange for housework. :?

I have known a few older women in my church circle who have professional experience who have on multiple occasions lent me books and offered to help me for nothing in exchange simply to pass on the knowledge. Jennie Chancey seems pretty stingy and business-oriented.

And here she mentions having another homeschooling family actually fold and ship her patterns while she was in Kenya. I wonder how much she paid them? I wonder if they still ship them off for her?: weshallobtaindeliveringgrace.blogspot.com/2012/03/interview-with-jennie-chancey.html

[fluttershies]

Fortunately, some of those girls have gone on to post about the experience:

blog.caseybrowndesigns.com/2010/02/guide-to-sewing-my-background/

She doesn't mention actually drafting the patterns, but she does say that she was mentored in exchange for housework. :?

I have known a few older women in my church circle who have professional experience who have on multiple occasions lent me books and offered to help me for nothing in exchange simply to pass on the knowledge. Jennie Chancey seems pretty stingy and business-oriented.

And here she mentions having another homeschooling family actually fold and ship her patterns while she was in Kenya. I wonder how much she paid them? I wonder if they still ship them off for her?: weshallobtaindeliveringgrace.blogspot.com/2012/03/interview-with-jennie-chancey.html

I didn't realise Casey was one of her interns. Ugh, I am so glad I never got sucked into LAF.

[hoipolloi]

Thanks all for the links everyone. Although there's a lot to roll one's eyes over in that interview with Jennie at weshallobtaindeliveringgrace, somehow this comment on homeschooling caught my eyes and caused them to go into an orbital rotation:

G.A. Henty and R.M. Ballantyne's historical fiction novels (all free online!) are big favorites with our oldest son, and I've read a few aloud as well.

Jennie, Jennie, Jennie.

Why aren't you & Matt paying your good buddy Doug Phillips the bargain price of $844 (marked down from $1540!!) for a special 70-volume set of Henty (visionforum.com/browse/product/70-volume-ga-henty-library/?search=Henty&page=2)?

Perhaps you spent a tad too much on the Titanic "charity" dinner; I'll bet you could still afford the complete 20-volume library of Ballantyne's adventure books (visionforum.com/browse/product/complete-rm-ballantyne-adventure-library/?search=Ballantyne), available from VF for the bargain price of $344 (also marked down significantly from $440!!).

Surely you & Bwana Matt could afford these prices, living as you do on the proceeds of your "sewing guild" and who knows what else in the name of missionary work. There's no reason to undercut Dougie's profit margin by getting free stuff from the internet. Shame on you!

[Edited for riffle]

[Elle]

So, despite being promoted on the Persecution Project Foundation's blog, Jennie's claiming, via e-mail, that the African dresses have nothing to do with PPF and is a personal endeavor for her family. Curiously in the e-mail I sent, I asked if she planned to return to the USA I didn't mention the dresses at all. I wonder if she's getting a lot of heat.

Also I've never heard of a charity organization that promotes personal projects that have nothing to do with the charity. Have any of you?

[Elle]

Surely you & Bwana Matt could afford these prices, living as you do on the proceeds of your "sewing guild" and who knows what else in the name of missionary work.

http://weshallobtaindeliveringgrace.blo ... ancey.html

56 trunks PLUS carry-on to go to Kenya? Surely it would have cost less to buy new stuff once there!

And those few pictures make her house look large and spacious. I wonder what those poor people who think $240 is a lot of money must think, considering that would barely have gotten someone by, without kids, more than 20 years ago.

[ladyamylynn]

Her hair reminds me of mine, and it looks like she isn't useing the correct products. My bangs do that weird curl thing when it is humid, I just have the common sense to pull them back in a headband when it gets bad! I think the greasy-limp look is from using the wrong products to avoid frizz.

BTW, my bangs are looking super cute today! :dance:

I bet your bangs are fab!!

[Anise]

56 trunks PLUS carry-on to go to Kenya? Surely it would have cost less to buy new stuff once there

I wondered about that myself. What would anyone put in so many trunks? :?

[Anise]

It just gets worse. The Persecution Project Foundation is actually run by Brad Phillips, brother to Doug Phillips. Yep, personal connection.

visionforum.com/news/blogs/doug/2004/06/

And I don't know if it was mentioned, but Jennie Chancey was featured on PPF's blog: persecutionproject.org/general/collateral-ministry/ as a "collateral ministry"- it's not clear whether this means it's officially endorsed or not. However, this was before Jennie Chancey started production.

[hoipolloi]

Matt Chancey is on the board of the Persecution Project Foundation according to this 2010 IRS 990 (http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2 ... feb7-9.pdf). Only Brad Phillips's compensation (ca $126K per year) is shown although a company owned by Matt -- Blockade Runners Consulting -- may be receiving money from PPF for services rendered.

Also, according to my friend Google, Matt Chancey is the president of several companies, two of which recently incorporated in Kenya: http://ke.linkedin.com/pub/matt-chancey/15/676/530.

East African Logistics (http://eal.co.ke/index.htm) appears to be a cargo/freight handling company, transporting stuff in, out of & within Kenya.

Are these business entities providing the income for the Chanceys to live their colonial missionary lifestyle?

[fundifugee]

Fundifugee, would you might taking a stab at a living expenses breakdown for the time you were there? I think it's very telling that at best these women are being paid $240 a month if they work full time TODAY when $200 over two decades ago only made ends meet by having so many people in a home.

Right now I'm working on an entry about the Art of Manliness.

Yup, an average of $100/month for rent, depending on location (less for further away from downtown and work, but then the transportation costs were more), $2-$3/day for food (we ate very simply, meat once a week if that, mostly plantain, cassava, millet or rice, beans, spinach/collard greens, peanuts, a few tomatoes, onions, and avocadoes, nothing but banana and tea for breakfast, no lunches at all), then $.60/day for round-trip public transport to and from work. water, $.20/day if we paid a guy with a bicycle to wheel it from the well for us, $.05/day if we carried it ourselves (this is WAY more than water costs in the developed world, by the way, despite the inconvenience of having a central well for each neighbourhood and having to haul water 2 kms home. We used 50-100 L per day depending on how many people were at home and whether it was a laundry day). The rest of the money, about 10-20 bucks a week, went to savings and incidentals, like medical care, soap, school fees, telephone calls, postage, a trip out of town one Sunday every few months (Sunday was the only day we were off work as the general work week is six days per week).

The houses we rented tended to be concrete-walled with locking doors. We could have gotten away with renting a mud house with a less secure door for $80/month but due to my obvious foreign-ness, we were a target for thieves and needed the extra security of solid walls and a lockable door.

[fundifugee]

Yes, and I hate the 56 trunk moving crap. For real, do you need all that stuff??? It is nuts, particularly in a nation where furniture factories featuring handcrafted carpentry are ver common and affordable (cheaper than importing 56 trunks for certain). I took two suitcases to East Africa and it way way too much, embarassingly so.

(and yes, all the missionaries griped endlessly about the lack of inner spring mattresses and that they had to use foam, and that the sofas had hard wooden arms instead of upholstered ones, blah blah blah. I thought the furniture was beautiful, yet another reasons I hated missionaries.)

[Elle]

Matt Chancey is on the board of the Persecution Project Foundation according to this 2010 IRS 990 (http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2 ... feb7-9.pdf). Only Brad Phillips's compensation (ca $126K per year) is shown although a company owned by Matt -- Blockade Runners Consulting -- may be receiving money from PPF for services rendered.

Also, according to my friend Google, Matt Chancey is the president of several companies, two of which recently incorporated in Kenya: http://ke.linkedin.com/pub/matt-chancey/15/676/530.

East African Logistics (http://eal.co.ke/index.htm) appears to be a cargo/freight handling company, transporting stuff in, out of & within Kenya.

Are these business entities providing the income for the Chanceys to live their colonial missionary lifestyle?

White people going to Africa to get fat of the exploited labor of the poverty-stricken locals. Frankly it's frightening that he owns a company that deals with transport into and out of a country with the history Kenya has. (And Jennie can shut the fuck up right now about the cost of shipping stuff to the US.) These people are filthy rich and do not need the money Jennie's making off the labor of those widows. But my god, that money would got a very far way toward improving those widows' lives. The sales from her patterns here in the US make more than is needed to live comfortably in Kenya.

[fundifugee]

In my experience, the US embassy is not going to give a crap what these folks are doing. The place they MAY run into trouble is with the Kenyan government. If they do not have proper visas, the Kenyan government could make a world of trouble for them. Many foreign residents rely on the local corruption and inadequate bureaucracy to go about business as usual, but there definitely are religious visas, business visas, tourist visas, etc. I do not know the criteria for each under Kenyan law but in general it would be a big no-no to be openly profiteering from businesses whilst under a religious worker visa.

[Elle]

Since inflation has obviously happened since you were there, how on earth can a family with several kids get by on no more than $240 today? Even without inflation, it seems like raising a family on $240 back then would have been difficult, and realistically those women are making far less than that. How was your general health without protein, calcium, etc.? Wouldn't growing children half starve?

My biggest beef with missionaries is how most (not all, just most) give help, but expect your soul and religions and culture to be given up in return. I think everything buy family owns would fit in 10 boxes right now, including the stuff we all share and use. If they didn't charter a private plane, I'm sure whichever airline they flew on had employees who had some choice words fora family traveling with 56 trunks (plus carry-on). Since most airlines charge about $40 per check-in (and the price goes up the more you have), that's in the range of $2200-$2400 they paid on the low end to take all that stuff when they could have sold it and bough a bunch of new stuff in Kenya, putting that money into the local economy.

The Chanceys are living like royalty there, and thinking themselves wonderful for tossing those poor exploited people the occasional bone.

[DarkAnts]

I reported the shop to etsy. I doubt they will do anything. Etsy did NOTHING found out that their feature seller was reselling. The same exact items were on overstock and the address for her company was the same as the import company that actually makes the items.

I highly suggest watching "Making the Crooked Straight". Its a documentry about the work of an American doctor in Africa.

[link=]http://www.makingthecrookedstraight.org/[/link]

[Sola]

Matt Chancey is on the board of the Persecution Project Foundation according to this 2010 IRS 990 (http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2 ... feb7-9.pdf). Only Brad Phillips's compensation (ca $126K per year) is shown although a company owned by Matt -- Blockade Runners Consulting -- may be receiving money from PPF for services rendered.

Also, according to my friend Google, Matt Chancey is the president of several companies, two of which recently incorporated in Kenya: http://ke.linkedin.com/pub/matt-chancey/15/676/530.

East African Logistics (http://eal.co.ke/index.htm) appears to be a cargo/freight handling company, transporting stuff in, out of & within Kenya.

Are these business entities providing the income for the Chanceys to live their colonial missionary lifestyle?

Interesting. So forgive me if I am wrong, but couldn't a freight/cargo company easily ship a few dozen dresses to the USA?

[fundifugee]

Most families fill up on cheap starch. I had some nutritional background with my degree so I insisted on protein, whether a grain-legume combo, or groundnut stew, at least 3-4 times a week, and I insisted on greens about that often too. Some families were lucky enough to have a avocado tree or banana tree nearby. Unfortunately, the cheapest food was plantain, which, when cooked green and peeled, has very little nutrition. In the three neighborhoods where I lived during those two years, it was disgustingly common to see kids with signs of malnutrition.

It is not a living wage, it is a survival wage. Wages like this are why many families "stay in the village" while one or two wage-earners go to the city slums to try to make some cash. The (usually women and children) left behind in the village fend for themselves via subsistence farming and, barring drought, are usually pretty well-fed (but it is HARD work). However, there is no such thing as free public education so if you want your kids to go to school someone has to go earn some money. The surfeit of men - sons/husbands - sent off to the city is the major contributor to the spread of HIV across East Africa. That and the general subsistence nutritional status, prevalence of malaria and other infectious disease, and expense of proper health care and lack of basic needs like clean water and sanitation result in a large number of widows, orphans, and other survivors traumatized by watching their children die and realizing how cheap and valueless their lives are to the rest of the world.

Usually the shipping trunks arrive by boat, then are trucked to the foreigners' houses. Of course all their house staff and neighbours see the monster quantities of Stuff arriving; they discuss it amongst themselves and with their families and friends. Everyone knows what a ridiculously gluttonous life they live and I wonder how anybody takes them seriously at all. Probably nobody does, but they have to put up with them to try and get what ever work and wages are available.

[silvia]

Well, this is interesting. This link bdsnetwork.cbs.dk/Latest%20BDS/Living_wages_in_Africa_1.ppt , a report from the International Research Network on Business, Development and Society, sets the reasonable monthly living wage, or "bread basket," of urban Kenyan families at US $315.60. IF Jennie Chancey is paying her workers about $240 a month, which would be about three times the minimum wage, it seems clear that she is paying them considerably less than a living wage. While this may indeed be the "retail rate" for seamstresses, as Jennie claims, I'm guessing it falls short of what fair trade officials would consider a humane wage appropriate for supporting a family.

[ottergirl]

I've been reading here for years, but what finally prompted me to sign up and post a comment (something not likely to happen often as I tend to not be good at commenting - other than being really longwinded when I do) is that I am pretty sure I saw Jennie Chancey last week.

I honestly don't know that much about the Chanceys as they weren't my gateway into this unusual world, but I did take notice when it was mentioned that they had moved to Kenya as I've lived here for a while. However, even then I still really didn't know much about them. I had some idea they were living outside the Nairobi area, though I'm not sure where I picked that idea up. I haven't even really seen many pictures of them. I do confess, though, to having a fondness for beautiful girls' dresses and I think that it was on here that someone posted a link to a girl's dress pattern made by Jennie that some little girls were modeling. I followed the link and actually bookmarked / copied the picture to add to when-I-learn-to-sew-which-will-never-happen dream page in the hopes of convincing my daughter (who now pretty much refuses to wear a skirt of any kind) to wear to a party.

So. I was walking through the mall last week, hurrying to meet the rest of my family when I noticed a woman and two girls up ahead of me. The dress one of the girls had on caught my eye as it was striking in some way and held my attention as I was trying to decide whether or not I liked it. It is not at all unusual to see little girls in dresses here -- most children are in school uniforms when I see them in town on a weekday afternoon. She was wearing gum boots with the dress (again, not at all unusual this time of year -- my kids often wear them with their clothes) and the woman had on a long skirt but, I don't think, one would particularly call it a frumpy skirt. However, I wasn't really looking at her -- and the lighting isn't quite the brightest there.

As I got closer, it struck me that the little girl looked familiar. But again, there isn't anything terribly odd about that. While there are a lot of ex-pats in the Nairobi area, it isn't that strange to see some of the same people over and over so that someone can look familiar.

It was only after I'd passed them that I realized who the little girl reminded me of -- the girl in the picture I'd bookmarked. As I said, I didn't honestly pay attention to the mother, and her hair seemed a bit shorter than what I'd seen in the few pictures I've seen of Jennie (and in the latest, Titanic ones, she has it up), but I am about 80% sure it was her (if she is currently in the country, that is). If I hadn't had family waiting for me and we weren't truly in a rush and it hadn't been about to pour and I didn't have an umbrella, I would have turned around and gone back for another look. Now I'm going to be on the lookout whenever we go again!

While much of what I've heard about her so far (I've started a bit of investigating now that I think I sighted her) is somewhat disturbing, I will say that I couldn't criticize her too much for the number of trunks. We came with a 20-foot container even though we were going to a furnished house. (We did bring a few items of good quality furniture we'd just purchased and didn't want to sell and had nowhere to store since we were given the container, plus we brought lots of bookcases -- again, since we already had them and there was room in the container and it wouldn't have made sense to spend a thousand dollars or more a year to put them into storage) and most of the rest of our stuff was books.

Then, when we come back from the U.S. each year we bring between 16 and 20 cases. What is in them? Well, mostly books as I'm an educator and books are my life. We are only a family of four -- I'm not clear how many kids they have. Very few of our trunks have clothes in them, but what clothes we do own are all bought in the U.S. because clothes are too expensive here.

Then, since we've been here airlines have dropped the weight limit, so those cases are not generally full. It doesn't take long to reach the 50 pound weight limit.

So yeah, for a large homeschooling family arriving the first time with no container, I think it would be very easy to reach that number of trunks that quickly.

[hoipolloi]

Interesting. So forgive me if I am wrong, but couldn't a freight/cargo company easily ship a few dozen dresses to the USA?

Sola - it would seem logical that Jennie's Etsy products are sent to the US, courtesy East African Logistics.

[Sola]

Yeah, thought so. So Jennie's shipping expenses will be at cost which means more profit for her.

[Sola]

I've found some info on Kibera and what life is like there in the slums http://www.kibera.org.uk/Facts.html

And on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4001061.stm the average wage (note: NOT minimum wage, so therefore higher) was just $1 a day in 2004.

According to this http://www.kiberachildren.org/kibera/ the average monthly income for Kibera (again, average, not minimum) is $27, of which a third of that is needed to rent the mud/tin roof shacks with no electricity, no running water and open sewage outside.

So bearing in mind that the average income is $27 a month, if we say that the minimum that people earn is $20 and Jennie has decided to pay three times the minimum, then she is probably paying around $60 a month. She is obviously recouping her wage expenses in the sale of just two dresses. Plus we can guarantee that Jennie will NOT be paying any form of healthcare insurance for her workers so if they are sick, not only will they not get paid if they can;t work, they will have to find money for their medical expenses.

Another thing that pisses me off too is that Jennie is quiverfull. She also is against feminism and wants women to submit to their husbands. You can bet she will be preaching that to the women she employs. So you get a situation where a woman in the slums will be told to be quiverfull - yet more mouths to feed on that tiny wage AND the rates of HIV in those slums is astronomical. From what I have read men are going into the cities to find work, being away from their families and are sleeping with prostitutes. Then then come home and pass it on to their wives who in turn pass it on to their children in utero. Those women might well have the wherewithal to insist their husbands use a condom. But what happens when Jennie comes to town and starts preaching submission and leaving family size up to 'god'? You'll get more pregnancies, more HIV, more poverty and the cycle is never broken.

Jennie Chancey is a tool.

[GolightlyGrrl]

If Jennie Chancey was in corporate America we'd have more Enrons, more AIGs, more Lehman Brothers and more Wall Street fuckwittery.