In 1998 a man named Alex and his wife Chris moved to Manila, Philippines where they worked at a boarder school. When school was let out for summer vacation they would go to Mindoro, Philippines which is a small island about 1.5 hour boat ride from Manila. They met a young lady who was 16 years old at the time selling bracelets to make an income for her family. Alex and Chris started talking to her and got to know her a bit. Every year for 5 more years they kept coming back to this island to get to know this young lady more and more. Alex then gave this young lady 100USD and told her to make as many bracelets that she thought that was worth. So she did… and she ended up making 1,200 bracelets! So when they went back to America he took the bracelets and started selling them for $1 each. With in 3 days he made $500! He knew that he wasn’t going to just keep the money so he asked the Lord what to do with it. God told him to go back and get this young lady to make more bracelets… so he did. This time she couldn’t make the bracelets alone so she got some friends to help her. They made 12,000 bracelets! Groups from Korea, and Australia came to Manila as missionaries. Alex told these groups the story as what was happening. They loved the idea so they took bracelets back to there colleges to sell. These bracelets continued to sell like crazy! From here as a couple years go by it turned into Threads of Hope!
Threads of Hope is an organization which send you bracelets that are made from ages 13 and older. They get thread for free and make as many bracelets as they can in one month. Every Saturday they will bring back all the bracelets, necklaces, lanyards, key chains, headbands etc. they have made and will get paid per bracelet. This will either be their full time job or a side job to help bring income for their families. Once these bracelets are made anyone from all over the world can take as many bracelets as they want for free. They then have to sell the bracelets and give 50% back to Threads of Hope but get to keep the other half. People can sell the bracelets for either a fundraiser or for an income. It’s a great way to help out those in the Philippines but also those who are missionaries trying to do some fundraising. This sounds like a pretty neat organization, right?! This is where I get to spend my month!
The beautiful Island of Mindoro, Philippines is a gorgeous place with coconut trees and “hills” (aka mountains is what I would call them) everywhere! I have a new team this month and they may be the team I end with unless something changes. This month has been quite busy so far as our days start at 7am and end at 5pm. We have been helping with fixing necklaces that may be falling apart to unknotting bracelets, restacking shelves with thread, and counting all the bracelets, necklaces, key chains, bookmarks etc. on pay day for the ladies. Next week we will be camp counselors for a youth camp that will be held here. We will be in charge of organizing activities, bible studies and just loving on the children. There are about 50+ kids that have signed up for the 4-day camp! Which I am super excited to be able to work with these teens.
This is my team: (starting from the left to the right) Julia (she is our squad leader so is only with my team for this month), LeAnna, Me, Nat (our team leader), Steff, and Allie!
Lanyards is what we have been working with for the past couple of days now. We are unknotting the ends of them as magnets are going to be put on the ends instead.
On Sundays we sing a song to the church congregation which is the employees who work for Threads of Hope which is about 800 people!
On Wednesdays we also sing for the employees who come to the evening service. This is the day they can get more thread for bracelets.
This is month 8! Can’t wait for what next week has to hold! 🙂
Much love,
Heidi
