“How on earth am I supposed to sell 900 handwoven Peruvian bracelets?”

This is a question I have been struggling with for the past two months, when I received a delivery consisting of 700 bracelets from the Peru Spring 2009 Goshen College SST group. “I still have 200 from my last batch!” I thought, nearly appalled.

The spring of 2008 I went to Chimbote, Peru, on the service portion of Goshen College’s Study-Service Term (SST). Chimbote, a coastal city, and the poorest city in Peru, was full of dust, stray dogs, crying children on the streets, houses made out of reeds, prostitutes, disease, illness, crime, waste and an overall stench of poverty. Going on service I knew I wanted to work with young women.

Very long story short (and if you would like to hear the long story, you’re more then welcome to put your e-mail address below and I will send you a copy of the story), I ended up creating a young women’s group for ages 12-18, in an attempt to provide the girls with something to do to keep them off the streets and away from the drugs, alcohol and prostitution.

While participating with this group of women, I also found myself meeting with a group of older women, ages 20-50, who met in the afternoons to make crafts, including traditional handwoven Peruvian bracelets. Eventually, Benjamin, my main contact in Chimbote, and I had the idea to have the older women teach the younger women how to make the bracelets so they could sell them and make a profit. This idea later spread to a group of women prostitutes who also wanted to participate in the bracelet-making program.

Benjamin and I worked out a way that I could sell the bracelets in the States and return the money by wiring it to a bank account. Within the first week of returning to the States I sold the 200 bracelets I originally brought home, which raised about $700. I received more bracelets, about 300, later that summer. I proceeded to sell these at music festivals, the Goshen farmer’s market and student art shows, which raised a little over $1,000. As of this date, I have sent approximately $3,000 to Peru with the profits from the bracelets.

Coming to Convention 2009, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew I was an mPress staff member. I assumed I would be covering stories on worship services, long lunch lines and anxious Mennonite teenagers — articles that weren’t exactly my “passions.”

I was hoping I could have an opportunity to sell some of my 900 bracelets, but without any kind of market or booth, I didn’t know how this would be possible.  Also, mPress is hard work (if you can’t tell by all our fabulous articles!) and I didn’t know if I would have a free moment to take a break with my bracelets.

Although I brought my bracelets, they sat in my hotel room untouched. But then Wednesday I saw there was an opportunity to write an article about the Mennonite Women USA booth. I jumped at the chance, seeing that this was something that interested me and I could be really passionate about writing.

Engaging in this article was a fabulous experience, not only because I had the chance to see what Mennonite Women USA was about and what they were currently doing for the church, but also because it reminded me of my passion and my mission to sell the Peruvian women’s bracelets! I saw that Mennonite Women’s next Timbrel issue was going to be about “Women and Poverty.” As I’m attempting to alleviate Peruvian women from poverty, this fell right in line with my prerogative.

I sat down to write this article, hoping to stir up some interest about my bracelets. Also, looking through the convention program, I noted Michelle Hershberger’s seminar titled, “How a prostitute can be more righteous than a patriarch: Understanding biblical stories in their context.” I plan to attend this seminar today (Thursday at 1:45 p.m., Friday at 3:00 p.m., in case you’re interested, too) and write an mPress article about it. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to sell some of my Peruvian bracelets there too.

Overall, I’m quite excited that Convention 2009 has fallen directly in line with my passions. For some reason, before coming to Columbus I could not see the connection between my bracelets and the overall convention. I thought it would be challenging to find the opportunity to sell my bracelets, and to tell the story to those who were interested. Now I can see that the articles I’m writing for mPress directly align with my passion to aid Peruvian women prostitutes.