FAWM Stead was birthed on the foundation of family, faith, healing and sustainability. The love for tea was developed over time through the stories of midwifery, sharecropping, gardening, tea cakes. The smell of freshly steeped tea and these stories transports me back to the days of my mother and mother’s mothers as I imagine nostalgic mornings as we sat, conversed and built with tea. It was there that my love for tea was not just the act of brewing tea bags but it is where I learned the virtue of being a woman, fearfully and wonderfully made. 

These reflections taught me of the rooted faith, present in me and my mothers and family long ago. Women who often faced opposition and oppression yet who still did the work their souls needed, and made a way when there was often no way set for them. These same women who possessed a faith in God so strong and willing virtue to use the gifts intricately intertwined in them, in the only ways afforded to them and found joy and contentment in doing so.