Retail Therapy

This post can take on several titles and it may be all over the place and really unfitting for an English 101 essay, but I forge ahead. Titles one and two would be "Retail Therapy" or the better stated "How I spent the grocery money today." The third title that would work is "One jar of marmalade at a time." Let me explain...

Today two of our very close family friends in the states are getting married to each other. Silly as it seems, moving to the middle east required a few sacrifices, but this one felt like it topped the list for me. Because I was a little sad to miss their special day, I did what many mopey and slightly hormonal women would do in my situation...I went shopping. Lucky for me, although today is shabbat and most everything is closed in the city, my friend Kay has organized a bazaar today - and even luckier, it is walking distance from our house by about a mile. While Ryan took the two older boys to church, like any good pastor's wife, I went shopping with the baby (the baby stroller is good for purchases). I think I made out quite well at the bazaar. My first purchase was two handbags, made of spun cambodian silk. These are "cottage industry" purses, made by women in small Cambodian villages. The women hand -make the purses, along with other beautiful items and the money they make off of them goes directly to building houses and digging wells in their communities. The organization who works with the villages is called the Tabitha Foundation. Their sole purpose is to help poor communities to rise above poverty and become self-sustaining.

My second purchase of the day was a set of hand-made paper notecards, made by the Al Basma Center for the disabled in Bethlehem. The center teaches the students life skills, speech and occupational therapy, and shares with them the love of Christ. The students make the cards, providing for them a sense of pride and accomplishment and the sale of the cards provides some of the funding for the school.

Third (yes I am a power shopper!) I picked up a silver ring - made from a single olive leaf from an olive tree. The leaves are made into molds and coated in silver, burning away in the process but leaving behind a perfect copy of each individual leaf. My ring is one of those leaves wrapped into the size of my finger. The following quote accompanies the olive leaf jewelry: "As Christians the olive tree stands for the steadfast love of God (read Psalm 52:8), for the people of Palestine it has symbolized abundance, steadfastness, and rootedness to the land. The olive branch stands for our longing for the end of the chaos and for peace. " The artists live in Bethlehem and you can find out about them at www.annadwa.org.

Lastly, I picked up a small coin purse and some more notecards (I am a sucker for old-fashioned communication though I obviously also love my computer!). The couple running the booth had lived in Gaza for 18 years and are now only allowed in and out on a limited basis, due to the violence and unrest in the area. The purses are made by a center for the deaf in Gaza, and 100% of the profits go to the center and to the workers and their families. There is very little commerce coming out of Gaza at the moment, and Harriet and her husband are one of the few who can get things out to sell.

It is true that I like to shop. It is also true that I am a softie for good causes (just ask all the girl scouts on our block in Cali). But retail therapy definitely took on a new depth for me, as I practically wept at each table as I walked around today. It was such a joy to meet the people who work to lift others out of poverty and to create meaning for them. All of the organizations today do what they do in the name of Jesus Christ. My friend Kay, who organized the bazaar, is a homemaker and mother of four boys aged 10 to 18. She has been busy these past 18 years with diapers, carpools, swim lessons and homework. And yet she has a deep ache in her heart for the poor and the oppressed in the West Bank and in Gaza. When she could do nothing else, she made 100s of jars of marmalade (she is originally from the UK) to sell. With the money she made, she was able to "adopt" 5 families in the West Bank, providing schooling, medical care, food and shelter for them. Hence my third title to this post. Kay is such an inspiration to me. Today my title might be "saving the world...one shopping spree at a time." But my hope and prayer is that in the future I can use the gifts and the meager talents that God has given me to join with Him to love and restore His people.