Sweaters and Letters

It was March of 1996 when a devotional I wrote about my sweater knitting for refugee children appeared in our annual Daily Guideposts and prompted a slew of letters from readers wanting to know how they could help. To my astonishment, the GUIDEPOSTS sweater program has grown and grown. As I work in our Manhattan editorial headquarters, the boxes pile up on my office couch.

Every day the packages come, from church groups, nursing homes, schoolteachers, busy mothers and retirees, each with a story. "I am dedicating these sweaters to the memory of my only sister," wrote Marguerite, a knitter from Holland, Mich. "I knew exactly how to use her collection of yarn."

Nothing deters our knitters. Faye from Fall River, Mass., found the sweater pattern in Our Special, a magazine published by the National Braille Press. That evening, after admiring Faye's handiwork, I sat at home knitting a gray-and-green sweater. Halfway across a green stripe, I closed my eyes. How could a blind person knit? When I tried it, the first stitch went fine. And the second. But where was the third? Nowhere to be felt with my clumsy fingers, and when I opened my eyes to check, it had sneakily dropped three rows and left me with a repair job. Setting down my needles, I said to myself, "Time to stop and thank the Lord for my sight—and for Faye's undaunted dexterity."

One lunch hour, I unfolded a note from Salem, Ore. Martha wrote that she dreaded a scheduled hip-replacement operation. She kept herself cheerful thinking of the sweaters she would knit during her recovery. Wonderful therapy, she thought, but soon discovered, "The therapy has not only been physical but also emotional and spiritual. With each stitch, my mind focuses not on myself but on someone who needs what I am creating."

Sixteen sweaters came from the White Clay Creek Presbyterian Church in Newark, Del., with a note beginning "Boy, are we ever having fun!" and going on to tell me the knitters belonged to a group called The Nimble Thimbles. I wish I could introduce the Thimbles to the Knit Wits, staff from the Gaston County, N.C., Health Department, who got together to make sweaters. Laughing and talking, they work prayer and hope into every sweater. Beulah from Ogden, Utah, summed it up best: "The children will be warmer, but I have received so much—so who is more blessed?"

We at GUIDEPOSTS, who pack and ship these rainbow-colored gifts in enormous gray plastic sacks, are awed and touched by the outpouring of sweaters and letters that come each day. We are still receiving more than 50 requests a week for the patterns and have sent out more than 14,000. The warmth of filling a need is profound for knitters and packers alike.