Fleeces for Bolivian Church Women

In pink with the blue stole, Justina inspects fleeces and barters with vendors.
(Photo by Deborah Rissing)

I couldn’t help thinking of the nursery rhyme, Baa, baa, black sheep, as we shopped last week for sheep, alpaca, and llama fleeces. Instead of three bags full, we bought nine whole alpaca fleeces and two complete sheep skins for a total of about $40 US dollars.

It’s shearing time here. Once a year, farmers shear their wooly animals, and take the bales of fleece to a huge market at Kasani, a small border town that straddles Peru and Bolivia. We could have walked the eight kilometers (about four miles) from our home, but because of the massive crowds and the bulky wool, we took a minibus both ways – for about 60 cents round trip!

Textile lovers that we are, we were thrilled to learn of this market and to be able to shop there with an expert in natural fibers. Justina, Pastor Juan Paz’s wife, who taught us a lot about shopping for alpaca and sheep’s wool.

There were literally acres of alpaca, llama, and sheep fleeces and hides. They were sold raw, fresh off the animal, burs, grass bits, and dirt intact. The price per pound hinged on quality – length of fibers, and absence of knots and tangles -- and ranged from $3 to $5. By the way, the kinkier wool from the two sheep fleeces we bought, one black and one white, will be blended with the alpaca fibers during spinning to add strength.

We bought all this alpaca and wool for the women of the five Bolivian churches we serve. They’ll clean the fleeces by hand, spin it into yarn, then crochet or knit scarves, hats, stoles, slippers, leg warmers, baby clothes, hacky sack balls … for you!

When we return to the States, from November 20th to December 27th, we’ll be selling all sorts of natural-fiber, hand-made, wearable art. (To learn more, read Debbie's Blog published at her home church, the First United Methodist Church in Downers Grove in Illinois. Watch for more details in her posts there.)

Money raised in this effort will go toward the church goal of raising 20 percent, or $5,000, to help build a residential center for abandanados, extremely poor people abandoned by their families; usually these are seniors too old to work, but often children are abandoned.

This post was written by Deborah Rissing (photo courtesy of D. Rissing) and Jeffrey Wasilevich, long term Individual Volunteers, who began their two years of volunteer servie earlier in 2011. They work with Mision Fronteras in the Lake Titicaca region of Peru and Bolivia. 


To view a short video of their work, link through YouTube at Mision Fronteras.


Find out how you can serve as an Individual Volunteer through the General Board of Global Ministries.

Give to Individual Volunteers Making A Difference.

Constantly Learning and Sharing

At ARI (Asian Rural Institute) the struggle continues. We learned this past week the pork and chicken that we recently butchered shows traces of radiation. While the level of contamination is far, far, far below the government standards, it is still contaminated. As a school, we have decided to eat the meat.

This incident is another reminder that our decision to continue ministry in this area is not something to be taken lightly, but in fact is a difficult one that we must constantly ponder. It also reminds us that much of our ministry right now is simply about being here and continuing life here in this place at this time.

This reflection is from Satomi McClurey, who with her husband, missionary Jonathan McClurey, ministers with the people at the Asian Rural Institute (ARI) in  Northern Japan. (Photo courtesy of the McClureys)

Although troubles are coming and we have plenty of reasons to run, we continue to be here. I think I’m slowly beginning to understand incarnational ministry through this experience.

As we have joined with local people to work on ways to clean up the radiation and take back our community from the fear of the unknown, we must believe that people not only here but around Japan are being blessed; that a physical manifestation of God’s presence, of the good news, is being witnessed. These are the channels through which the gospel of Jesus Christ can then flow, giving the full good news of salvation through God’s grace in God's time.

At the same time, we are being encouraged to go forward...

To read more of the McCurleys' reflections, visit their blog at: http://proverbs169.wordpress.com

To support the missionary work of Jonathan McCurley, link to: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/work/missionaries/biographies/index.cfm?action=results&key=2&criteria=mccurley&Submit=Go

Palestinian Christian Remembers 9-11

Rev. Alex Awad, Global Ministries mission worker, reflects on hearing the news from New York ten years ago on the streets of Jerusalem. (Photo by Mike DuBose)

On September 11, 2001, my son and I were walking along one of the narrow streets of East Jerusalem when suddenly we began to hear voices coming from here and there. One voice said, "America is attacked!" Another said, “Take a look at the TV; New York is under attack!”  

Thanks to modern technology, people in shops in Jerusalem and in Bethlehem were watching the drama unfold in New York. Shopkeepers, customers, and tourists became glued to TV screens watching the savage attacks on the World Trade Center. When I entered one of the shops to see what the fuss was all about, my heart sunk and I felt sick at my stomach. I hurried home to watch the rest of the tragedy with my family. 

I was one of the many Palestinians who totally deplored the attacks. I knew from the outset that the majority of Palestinians who felt like me would be ignored by the media and the few Palestinians who celebrated the attacks would have prime-time coverage. In spite of the fact that not one of the attackers were Palestinians, Palestinians suffered much after the attacks.

Now, ten years after 9/11 and after America has carried out a decade of retribution on Afghanistan, Iraq, and radical Islamists around the world, it is good for Americans, and especially American evangelicals, to ask some hard questions and seek real answers—questions like, "Why did the attacks take place?"

Have evangelicals in the US followed the teachings of Christ in seeking and endorsing revenge on their enemies? What could evangelicals do today to bridge the gap between them and their Muslim neighbors? And how should we act in the next 10 years to shine with the light and love of Christ to the Muslim world? As evangelicals remember 9/11, I pray, God bless America and may America learn how to live at peace with the rest of the world!


Rev. Alex Awad is a Palestinian Christian who was born in Jerusalem and serves on behalf of Global Ministries as Dean and professor at Bethlehem Bible College and as pastor of the Jerusalem Baptist Church. To learn more about Rev. Awad, link to: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/work/missionaries/biographies/index.cfm?action=details&id=26  


To read Rev. Awad's reflections on the Arab uprisings and the Christian response, link to an earlier Global Ministries story at: http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=6008