Check out these upcoming Beaded Hope events and be sure to come back often to see what new events we’ve added!

April 10-23

Travel to South Africa to love on the ladies of Beaded Hope!

For more information on any upcoming Beaded Hope events simply email your question to info@beadedhope.org.

To schedule your own Beaded Hope @Home show email Jennifer directly at jennifer@beadedhope.org.

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.

A heart-felt thank you to the Loveland Women’s Club who generously invited Cathy and I to share our inspirational stories of the Beaded Hope novel and the women of South Africa. We are honored that you opened your hearts to us and to the ladies of South Africa. Your generosity put 73 days worth of food. As they say in South Africa, you are blessed!

Last weekend Cathy Liggett and I had the amazing opportunity to visit the First UCC Mission Committee and the Women of F.A.I.T.H. in Sugarcreek, OH.

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.

The next day we joined Sugarcreek’s annual “For Your Pleasure” a holiday shopping event that draws people from all over the area.

Cathy and I are so thankful for the opportunity to speak with First UCC about Beaded Hope. Even more, we thank them for opening their hearts to the women of South Africa.

As you know, at Beaded Hope we measure success in day’s worth of food. This means for every $15 purchase you are providing an artist with 2 days’ worth of food.

Through their love and generosity the First UCC and the community of Sugarcreek provided the ladies in South Africa with the equivalent of nearly a year’s worth of food (360 days!). We are incredibly grateful for this remarkable accomplishment and for the blessings that have been showered upon the ladies in South Africa.

As the ladies in South Africa would say, you are blessed.

Be sure to check out our pictures from the weekend on Facebook.

Pat Edgar of First UCC provided this beautiful introduction prior to our presentations. We thought you might enjoy reading a little bit about how we landed in Sugarcreek.

It is my pleasure tonight to introduce our speakers, Jennifer Davis and Cathy Liggett.  I have put a brief biography of each of them in your program and encourage you to look at those.  What I’d like to share with you now is how they came to be here with us tonight.

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.

When she read it, she knew it would be right for our book study and passed it on to me.  I agreed wholeheartedly and was so inspired by what I had read that I checked out the Beaded Hope Web site.  Some of you have more experience with computers than others.  But one feature of any computer Web site is the little button that you can press that says “Contact Us.”  When I pressed that button to tell mission founder, Jennifer Davis, what her work and the book had meant to Susie and me, I got an almost immediate response.

Through a series of e-mails back and forth, Jennifer Davis and author, Cathy Liggett, agreed to bring their story to Sugarcreek on this weekend full of mission activities here at the church.  And we are very excited that they are here.

What makes this even more special for me is that our speakers tonight are women who didn’t set out to change the world.  As you can read in your programs, both Jennifer and Cathy had a series of jobs and careers before Beaded Hope came into their lives.  One thing they had in common, though, was that they both had a heart for Africa and the willingness to go where God lead them.  Through Jennifer’s corporate experience and jewelry making abilities and Cathy’s writing ability and publishing experience, Beaded Hope was able to come alive for both the women of Africa and the many thousands of readers and jewelry buyers they have encountered during the past several years.

Tonight you’ll hear something of their stories and the stories of the people they serve.  One important point that I’d like you to take from the presentation tonight is that they made themselves available and willing to take direction when God called them.  They took that step that some of you here tonight have taken in participating in a hands-on mission, but they also followed that experience through in a way that has touched many, many lives.  I pray that we can learn from them.  When God showed Susie the book Beaded Hope at Amazon.com and when He encouraged me to press the “Contact Us” button at BeadedHope.org, He was setting in motion this encounter tonight.  Listen carefully, He may be showing you something you never dreamed of before.

Let’s welcome Jennifer Davis and Cathy Liggett.

What happens when you host a Beaded Hope @Home show? You put days and days worth of food on the table of the ladies of South Africa. But not only do you feed them, you give them a job and work to empower them; just by participating in a home show. Check out the latest Beaded Hope @Home show results:

October 28th show hosted by Lori Ford provided the equivalent of 75 days worth of food

October 10th show hosted by Kristin Goecke provided the equivalent of 50 days worth of food

What about you? Would you like to host a show? Just email Jennifer at jennifer@beadedhope.org to get started.

FREE and open to the public, the 4th annual Books by the Banks: Cincinnati USA Book Festival will be held October 2, 2010 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Each year the Book Festival continues to build upon its success. Organized by the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County, the University of Cincinnati Libraries, The Mercantile Library, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers, it is the joy of reading and books that brings these partners together.

This year Cathy Liggett, Beaded Hope author, will be joining the Books by the Banks event. So, this is your perfect opportunity to pick up a book and have it signed by the author (just in time for Christmas gift giving!).

More than 100 regional and national authors will be participating in Books by the Banks. Purchase books and have them signed by the authors throughout the day. Enjoy author readings and panel discussions. Visit the K12 Kids’ Corner featuring costumed storybook characters, crafts, and other fun activities for families. There’s something for all ages.

For more information, visit: www.booksbythebanks.org

For more information about Cathy Liggett you can visit her at: www.CathyLiggettt.com

Beaded Hope author Cathy Liggett and I had the pleasure of speaking at iMPACT Church on Sunday, August 15th. We shared our personal stories of how Beaded Hope (both the organization and the book) came to be. We also had the opportunity to meet and visit the wonderful women of iMPACT.

A big “thank you” goes out to all the ladies of iMPACT for welcoming us!

Today I had the opportunity to walk through the World Vision Experience: AIDS with my 8-year-old son. Tethered together and listening to the same audio story, we experienced Babirye’s story.

After walking through the exhibit we had the opportunity to write a note with our thoughts or prayers.

My son wrote this heart-felt note after going through the exhibit. When he was done he promptly handed me a piece of paper and a pen so that I could write my own note.

He added his prayers and mine to the wall of prayers.

And then knelt down before this cross to pray for ALL of the children of Africa.