Thanks to Amanda Evans, student, musician, all around creative and writer extraordinaire, for the following contribution to Beaded Hope.
Title: Burlap Sacks and Itchy Crosses: A Live Reading of Beaded Hope
Guest Blogger: Amanda Evans
The scene is reminiscent of the Inklings. Trade Oxford, England for West Chester, Ohio; The Eagle and Child pub for Book Bums coffee-shop; and literary masterminds for a couple of middle-aged women.
While the Inklings would sit in their little pub brainstorming the literature that would later shape and change the world, these four ladies sit discussing ways their own books and crafty talents can be small efforts to change the world.
In the film Evan Almighty, God asks Evan, “How do we change the world?”
“One single act of random kindness at a time,” Evan replies. These ladies seem to take that to heart. They dream up ways to craft novels or jewelry or bags that can be used to raise money for third-world areas.
“We’ll sell burlap sacks and itchy crosses,” Lisa Demaree says on ways to help save the world.
It was only a few hours prior that Lisa was asking, “Is she going to do a reading… like you know?” She points to her palm. But no, this was a book reading.
Cathy Liggett is a thin lady, dressed in a wintry gray dress, black tights and black boots. Her slender fingers grasp the warm colors of her paperback novel, Beaded Hope. She cracks open the book to the part where her characters land in South Africa. She inches up on her tiptoes and, pressing her toes together, falls back to the side of her feet. Cathy begins to read, her voice, reserved. She angles her head to the side, lips curving to smile as she reads each word. She brushes back the wisps of hair falling onto her thin black framed glasses.
It’s a small group, ten adults and some children. But “Let It Snow,” Beaded Hope’s Christmas event, has had a steady stream of people since it began at noon on Saturday, November 20th. Beaded Hope is a non-profit organization that was started by Jennifer Davis in 2005. It’s a small, niche organization, which works on an individual level to fight against HIV/AIDS. They sell jewelry hand-crafted by South African women to provide the women and their community with an income.
“Let it Snow” is a four hour event in which guests can browse through Beaded Hope’s jewelry and ornaments and maybe even buy Christmas gifts. Cathy’s novel, which was inspired by Beaded Hope, is also available for signing and buying. Twenty percent of the book’s proceeds go to Beaded Hope.
Christy Williams, co-owner of the hosting location, Book Bums, a local coffee shop, has stopped bustling around to sit and listen to Cathy. Even the littlest of the children present are quiet. Cathy’s voice tentatively presses forward, as she waves her fingers over the pages explaining how some paragraph isn’t necessary to read. But after a couple pages, she finishes reading and closes the book. Her open mouth stretches to the side in a half-smile, curious for the audience reaction.
Applause.
She smiles. “I’ve never done that before, I need to practice.”
Cathy and Jennifer settle down at a table to debrief. They are joined by Lisa Demaree and Julie Evans. Lisa is somewhat of a hippy in a bright, purple sweater, frizzed-out hair and baby blue polish. Julie is a skinny, spiky-haired redhead, whose shirt covers up scars from a double-mastectomy. The four are all entrepreneuring philanthropists with plans to travel, write or create.
Jennifer begins to explain how Beaded Hope began. She traveled to Mamelodi in 2005 and was inspired by the beadwork hand-crafted by various women. She loves jewelry-making and had her own jewelry business. “It was my creative outlet and I’ve had a heart for Africa for 100 years,” Jennifer tells the group. An idea formed, and Beaded Hope was born.
Not only does Beaded Hope provide income for individual women, but they also support the Bophelong Hospice and Bophelong Orphanage in Mamelodi. An estimated 50% of the Mamelodi population is HIV-positive. Jennifer hopes that by working at an individual level, small change can ripple through South Africa.
Cathy’s wearing one of Beaded Hope’s red ribbons for aids pinned to her dress. This ribbon is very similar to the one that Jennifer Davis wore the day that the two women met—the one that initiated their friendship.
In 2005, Jennifer Davis walked into Bethesda hospital after returning from her trip to South Africa. She was wearing the red ribbon. Cathy, who works at Bethesda, greeted her and bought a ribbon. Jennifer returned to Bethesda two other, unrelated times, and every time Cathy just happened to be working.
“You were the first person who really listened to my stories from South Africa,” Jennifer tells Cathy.
The two kept meeting: Cathy from Loveland and Jennifer from West Chester. Jennifer says that with Beaded Hope, it is “always somebody that keeps crossing your path.”
Cathy was inspired by Jennifer and originally tried to write Beaded Hope as a great romance. Cathy started her writing career as a child, but worked in advertising for several years. She married, moved to New York and wrote, what she calls, “little simple romances… the kind where they get to kiss at the end.” The plan was that this story of Africa would be a huge cultural romance. Her critique partners disagreed.
“So, I started it again as women’s fiction and obviously that’s what it needed to be, because that’s what it is: women helping women,” Cathy says.
Cathy tells the group that at that point, she tried to pitch her new book to some editors at a conference. She was turned down. Six months later, Jennifer called Cathy up and told her to go to South Africa. Cathy did just that.
“When I got back at first, I thought, why was I even there?” Cathy says. Many of the planned outreaches, such as delivering groceries to families, didn’t get to happen. But Cathy and Jennifer both say that the people in Africa actually do the ministering. “I think I realized maybe it wasn’t about me doing something there, it was about me doing something here. And when I started looking at pictures of the ladies, I thought, I should pull this out and work on it some more.”
Beaded Hope is a story of four American women who travel to South Africa on a mission trip. But the African women they meet, who are joyous in the midst of adversity, HIV and AIDS, amaze them. The four women discover a way to help the women use their jewelry to earn an income.
“It’s kind of confusing, probably,” Cathy stops to explain, “Because Jennifer really started the organization the way she started it. But for the sake of the story, I went ahead and created a whole different way that it could have started.”
When Cathy got back from Africa, she did not even have to rewrite the book. She just infused it with the character and personality of the women she met on her own trip. “What I hope to do with the book is to capture the spirit of the ladies,” Cathy says. As she said earlier, it is a story of women helping women.
How she finally got Beaded Hope signed is another “fluky story,” Cathy says. She aimed for Tyndale, a missional publishing company, but needed an agent. After being turned down by her first few tries, she grabbed a list of agents in frustration and called the first number. It just so happened that the owner of the company picked up and asked Cathy what she had.
“And she said, send it to me I think I can place this,” Cathy says.
Sure enough, Tyndale picked it up and was even willing to donate twenty percent of the book’s proceeds to the Beaded Hope organization. “And I cried and cried and cried and cried,” Cathy says.
The four women laugh. The room is warm, the smell of coffee is in the air and Jennifer’s family bustles around, cleaning everything up. The stories continue to spill out as each woman talks about their personal goals and dreams. Lisa talks about her own upcoming mission trip to Africa; Julie tells of the book she’s writing on her battle with breast cancer; and Jennifer and Cathy fill them in on the plans for Beaded Hope, the novel and organization. They are content knowing that change starts out small.
The Beaded Hope novel is celebrating its one year anniversary this month!
What does it mean to be a “microphilanthropist”? According to 
We had a wonderful trip that began with a book signing for Cathy at The Gospel Shop in downtown Sugarcreek. We then went to First UCC where we were invited to speak about our work and our journey with Beaded Hope (both the novel and the organization). We concluded the evening with a jam-packed sale of Beaded Hope items.
For us here at First UCC, the journey to Africa and the Beaded Hope Organization began when one of our Women’s Book Club Members, Susie Immel, was ordering a book on Amazon.com. For those of you who are familiar with that Web site, you’ll know that they track your purchases and web searches and very helpfully recommend other books that they think you’ll enjoy. It was in this way that Susie found the book, Beaded Hope.
