Community members of all ages worked together at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in March to make quilts for Burmese refugees in Thailand. Pastor Mark Ditmanson challenged the community to make 25 quilts, but the men, women, and children involved in the project exceeded their goal by making 30 quilts. (L-R) Carol Berglund, Greta Roth, and Stephanie Radloff work together.
Close to 30 people ages 1 to 80-something gathered at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais on March 8 to stitch quilts together for people in need on the other side of the world.
For the last 28 years, Burmese ethnic groups forced out of their homeland have been living in refugee camps across the border in Thailand. According to Gather magazine, a publication of the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in America (January/ February 2013), 150,000 people live in these camps in bamboo houses with leaf roofs.
Even though Thailand is in the tropics, temperatures sometimes fall into the 50s at night. Lutheran World Relief has been sending about 400,000 quilts a year to 25 countries, 70,000 to the refugee camps in Thailand. The organization has set a 2013 goal of 500,000 quilts and has challenged the Women of the ELCA, celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, to increase their participation in honor of this milestone.
Former consumer and family science teacher Cindy Muus used her considerable expertise at the sewing machine to help stitch quilts for refugees in a quilting bee at Bethlehem Lutheran Church on March 8.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church of Grand Marais took up the challenge with a resolve to send 25 quilts for the refugee camps in Thailand.
“It’s a tremendous turnout,” said Jody Daugherty, a veteran quilter, in the church social room, where men, women, and youth were busy knotting and stitching a roomful of quilts.
Bethlehem Quilters, a group that gathers at the church from 9 a.m. to noon on Thursdays, make about 250 quilts a year, which they give to places like the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and Damiano Center in Duluth and to the church’s graduating seniors. They also sell some of their quilts to help pay for supplies, although generous donors also give them fabric, batting, and yarn.
The quilts being made for Thailand were thicker than usual, with blankets sewn inside to help ward off the cold. They were also deliberately designed in darker colors, since the refugees get their wash water from muddy rivers. The blankets are also used for room dividers and curtains, which help keep warmth inside their homes.
Daugherty said they received a “tremendous response” when they asked for donations of blankets to use as filling in the quilts. “We’ve been very blessed with generous people,” she said.
The volunteer quilters met again on March 16 and topped the church’s goal with 30 completed quilts to be sent to Thailand.
Regarding the ongoing work of the Bethlehem Quilters, Daugherty said, “We’d love to have more people come and help.”
Lutheran World Relief has been delivering quilts, sewing kits, hygiene products, school supplies, and layettes around the world since 1945, working to ensure fairness in distribution. Recipients have been victims of poverty, malnutrition, illness, natural disasters, political conflict, and war. The organization considers their work “faith put into action.”
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