We've been having a great time traveling around Minnesota and Iowa. We've traveled 2000+ miles so far. Let's see...we will have had 15 different overnight stays during the month of June. Churches either have us stay with a host family or put us up in a hotel for the night. We really enjoy aspects of both types of hospitality. We love all of our host families and really enjoy our visits with them. But the hotel stays are good too because that allows us to have some family time together.
I've been selling Women of Hope products at the various churches. The funny thing is that as soon as I gain some extra room in the van after selling products, it gets filled up with wedding dresses, clothes for the kids and books. I've already met Mom and Dad twice along our route (Fort Dodge & Rochester) to offload items. If we hadn't done that, the kids wouldn't even have breathing room!
Thanks to the women in Oelwein who helped me out tonight!
I met a woman in Greene, IA, who is very interested in the ministry. She bought a lot of products and then later emailed me that she's very interested in some more Redemption Quilts. Well, she drove about an hour tonight to come hear us again and to buy a couple more Redemption Quilts. I haven't put them out for the last couple of nights since I knew that she wanted them. It was fun to meet her friend Maribeth--I don't run across too many of us! (When I was in junior high, that's the way I wanted to spell my name!)
The Redemption Quilts are one of our trademarks. I told Kara that I just have to tell her the story behind the quilts, so here it is:
Every week the quilting ladies make little tiny “quilts” (3” x 3”), and we buy them. These quilts are known as their transport project because the money they receive enables them to pay their transportation fares to Bezer Home. If we did not provide for their transport in some way, the sewing program would crumble as most could not afford to come on their own. Many of the little quilts get made into greeting cards. However, not all of the little quilts are perfect enough to be made into cards. When we had a huge bucket full of slightly imperfect quilts, I got to wondering what we could possibly do with them. An idea came: we started sewing them together with plain black squares in between. The result was stunning as the brilliant colors and patterns were set off against a black background. The small flaws were no longer noticeable in the breath-taking array of color. These quilts have become known as our Redemption Quilts because what was once lost has now been redeemed. What a beautiful reflection of what Christ can do in each of our lives.
Wedding Dresses, also bridesmaid dresses, flower girl dresses, wedding accessories, etc. I've already mentioned this in a previous post (May 20) and people have responded very enthusiastically. Please help us get the word out to your friends and church.
Diaper Bags--There are some diaper bags available here, but they are generally quite expensive. I've discovered that many people in the U.S. have more than one diaper bag because they often receive a free one in the hospital. Once again, women here are absolutely delighted to receive these diaper bags. 
The quilt below was custom designed for a teacher who is leaving Hillcrest after teaching first grade for two years. The names of the 24 children she taught are embroidered beside their hands. If you have really good eyes--and if you know where Nigeria is--you can see a white outline of Nigeria on the Africa map.
