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By Melodie Woerman

Editor, The Harvest

Knit one, serve many: stitching projects abound

Women from many parishes use their needlework skills to benefit others

Deacon Pat Murphy noticed that the nursing home residents she visits once a week always said they were cold, so she figured the women of St. Paul’s, Kansas City could do something about that.

Late last year she asked the parish Episcopal Church Women to help her make lap robes for elderly care facility residents. So far six lap robes have been finished in the first two months, with more in the works.

Members provide the yarn for their own project and often spend time together stitching before the start of ECW meetings. They also work on their projects separately.

Murphy said the chance to stitch also gave the women of the parish a project that brought them together as a group.

Prayer shawl ministry

The Daughters of the King at St. David’s, Topeka have begun a prayer ministry that produces shawls for those who are ill or in need of some kind of healing.

While the medium is yarn, the intent is the prayers, according to Mary Cohoon, one of the group’s organizers. Shawls were chosen so they can enfold the recipient with the warmth of the material and the prayers that are said during its making, she said.

Once shawls are completed, they are blessed before being sent to recipients. “This is a very powerful ministry,” she said.

More than two dozen shawls have been created, blessed and distributed since the ministry began last fall. Mary Jane Heacock, another organizer, said there are nine knitters and seven crocheters involved in the effort.

Women at Grace Cathedral, Topeka, have issued an invitation to knitters to start a prayer shawl ministry at that parish as well. An initial meeting for interested members and friends is planned for early March.

Rag dolls 2 love

Deacon Suzanne Layne coordinated members from St. Matthew’s, Newton and Good Shepherd, Wichita in making 59 rag dolls. The “Rag Dolls 2 Love” project puts 20-inch fabric dolls in the hands of children suffering from war, disease or natural disaster. The dolls are made without hair or clothes and have features that do not represent any ethnic group.

“They really grab your heart,” Layne said. “There is something about the simplicity of them; you do get attached to them. Something about that smile,” she said.

Layne has learned these dolls will go to children in Nigeria.

Other stitching efforts

Elizabeth Cathey of St. John’s, Wichita made more than 70 hand-knitted caps for people who participate in the parish’s community dinners for those in need.

Knitters at Grace Church, Chanute donated 40 sets of hats and scarves to the Seaman’s Institute in New York to give to sailors who reach U.S. ports in the winter without warm clothing.

Kansans grateful for their service on PB nominating committee

You couldn’t blame Sarah Knoll-Williams and the Rev. James Haney for breathing a sigh of relief. They just completed three years as members of the committee that has nominated four bishops to stand for election as the next Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

And while each expressed a sense of relief that this major task has come to a conclusion, they also will miss the people who have become friends through this process.

Haney, rector of Good Shepherd, Wichita, noted that the committee agreed not to express a personal preference for any candidate but to stand by the entire slate. He said the committee was unanimous in standing behind their four nominees, both as a committee and individually.

He said, “I think the Holy Spirit must have been operative to allow 29 diverse individuals reflecting the theological and demographic breadth of the church to come to such a decision.”

Knoll-Williams, a member of St. Margaret’s and now attending seminary at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif., said committee members’ skills complemented each other.

“We had technological skills, gifts for writing, gifts for guiding our committee’s deliberation process, gifts of humor, gifts of organization,” she said.

Knoll-Williams said she had hoped the committee might make better use of electronic technology in its work, but instead relied on the rather low-tech model of face-to-face meetings. She noted that finding enough time to give to such meetings is hard for students and those who work full-time outside the church.

Will miss the people

Both Haney and Knoll-Williams said they will miss the people they came to know in the past three years. They noted the number of life changes that had occurred among members. Knoll-Williams herself graduated from college, got married and started seminary. Others changed jobs, retired or were elected bishop.

Haney said vignettes from committee time will stick with him. He recalled “piling into a couple of rented cars during an hour-long break and driving 40 minutes round-trip to the beach just to put our feet in the ocean for 15 minutes." He added, “Those little things made a very difficult task worthwhile.”

As the Episcopal Church prepares for the selection of the next Presiding Bishop, Knoll-Williams encouraged people to get to know these nominees by searching their diocesan web sites and reading sermons.

Haney said he has a new appreciation for the church’s nature. “I appreciate being reminded again that the Episcopal Church is a ‘big tent,’ that in spite of disagreements and difficulties, we do have a strong, diverse center that is worth treasuring and preserving.”