and also support a factory in Haiti...
http://www.holylandmilitaryrosary.org/
I met Fr. Bill Kneemiller today and he told me about this excellent cause. Please order some of these rosaries and get your parishes involved. See the above website for more details, but here are a few snippets to read.
The Holy Land Rosary is made with an olive wood crucifix from the Holy Land, simple brown pony beads and military-grade parachute cord. It is a wonderful prayer aid, connecting us with Christ’s passion in the Garden and the Holy Land where Christ lived and taught. It also helps fulfill the prophesy in Isaiah 2:4: “ You will turn your swords into plowshares, …and your parachute cords into rosary cords.” (The last sentence is my ‘living translation’.) For more info on how to order materials and make these Rosaries, email Fr Bill Kneemiller at kneemillerw@diodav.org
In the last couple of years our Iowa parishes have made over a thousand Holy Land Ranger Rosaries. The olive wood crucifix for these Rosaries is purchased from the Catholic families living in Bethlehem, this being their sole means of livelihood. These rosaries continue to be a great source of blessing as a prayer aid for parishioners of all ages, patients in hospitals and hospice wards, and military personnel. I believe that the Holy Land Crucifix is a connection to Christ in the Garden of Olive and a reminder to us of the land where Jesus walked. For anyone praying the Rosary, I encourage you to ask the grace to ‘pray with the heart’—which involves the special grace of praying the Rosary while contemplating the Scriptures, with devotion and divine love. Also I believe that the Scripture from Isaiah 2:2 applies, which states that ‘Swords will be turned into plowshares…”, so my loose translation of this is, “Parachute cords will be turned into Rosary cords…”.
With our parishes having a sister parish in Haiti, we are building a ‘Rosary Factory in Haiti. An opportunity to begin this project came recently when Liz McDermott, the rep from ServeHaiti, recently visited Haiti. Here is her report after I gave her rosary supplies to take with her on her Haiti trip: Liz said she worked with the local chapter of the Vincent DePaul Society in Haiti to train workers there to assemble the Holy Land Military Rosary. The workers are paid a living wage for each Rosary made, and the Haitian workers were delighted to have some work in a country where the unemployment rate is about 70%. Then the ServeHaiti volunteers brought back hundreds of finished Rosaries. The Rosaries and cases are then donated to Catholic Chaplains in Afghanistan and to Rosary groups in parishes to promote the praying of the family Rosary.
P.S. An accomplished seamstress has recently designed a cloth Rosary Case that goes with the Rosary. Any donations for the Rosary Factory should be addressed to “SS Philip & James, 606 Fulton St, PO Box 7, Grand Mound, IA 52751”, with a notation: ‘Special Haiti Project’
See the website listed above on instructions on how to make the rosaries and how to make the pouches. Also, consider how you can help support the factory in Haiti.