Havre handiwork bound for those in need

HAVRE – Quilts filled every pew at First Lutheran Church recently as members gathered to bless them and send them to those in need.

A year of stitching in Havre resulted in 187 quilts to donate to Lutheran World Relief. The charity, which operates in 35 countries, is sending mission quilts and care kits to Serbia, where they’re being distributed to refugees from Syria. Earthquake victims in Nepal are curling up under Lutheran quilts, too.

“A lot of people work from home. They piece together the quilt, and at church we meet two Saturday mornings a month and finish the quilts,” quilter Sue Ost said. “We keep working away and we get some new people to come when the older ones can’t do it any more. Our new group is really faithful and has been for many years.”

Ost has been a member of the church for more than 40 years, and First Lutheran Church has contributed quilts to the cause for more years than that.

“It’s just the joy of making quilts and giving them to people who need them,” Ost said. “We’ll never know who they are, but we know they go where they’re needed the most.”

The quilters turn leftover scraps and donated fabric “into something that is usable and will be special to someone. We work together, so we also have fellowship in that.”

Ost said quilters may be taken with the beauty of a particular quilt, but no one ever tries to claim it.

“When we put them out in the church, each is so beautiful and unique,” she said. “There’s never any option that we’re not going to send them. We love that they’re so beautiful.”

Besides the quilts, the Havre church donated 52 baby care kits, 65 school kits, 37 fabric/sewing kits, 125 personal care kits and 148 bars of soap – a total of 1,420 pounds. A truck came through Sunday to pick up the donations and those from other area ELCA churches.

“Lots of different things and all that is donated,” Ost said. “We ask for it and it comes.”

Ost said a new tracking system lets churches find out where donations have gone. Last year, the quilts went to Angola, an African nation putting itself back together after a 27-year civil war.

“People want to know. They don’t care if it’s one place or another but they like to know,” she said. “It motivates people. They can have a little more detailed of an idea and know they’re going to a place that really needs them.”