Men, women, young and old ALL wanted to know how to make beads

In July and August, Hope in Haiti sent 16 team members to assist with two youth summer camps–one in Nan Wo, and one in Port au Prince. As part of the Nan Wo camp, our team taught various job and life skills. Here’s another peek at what we were teaching:

If you walked into Pastor Louinet’s church building during the recent youth camp, you would have immediately noticed at least 20 youths and young adults in a dimly lit corner, crammed onto wooden benches and hunched over in great concentration, while Grace Gloor went from person to person speaking soft words of advice in Creole.

What were they doing that drew such rapt attention to the desktop in front of them? This, my friends, is Grace’s bead-making class. As part of Louinet’s summer camp for the young people of the eleven churches he oversees, Grace taught many dozens of Haitians how to take strips of ordinary magazine paper, roll them up in glue, and turn them into beautiful beads for bracelets and necklaces. The hope is that some will take the knowledge and inspiration of this class and start creating even more such marketable crafts from commonplace materials.

And it turned out that making beads was a huge hit with our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ, both young and old. Grace and teammates Molly, Rachel, and Charity taught over a hundred students how to make beads, some of them so concentrating so intensely that sweat poured from their faces and covered the paper they were working with. In between sessions, Grace and the others put more hours of labor into drying, separating, and stringing the beads into bracelets.

Bead bracelets

Many students did a great job and created beautiful beads. Others didn’t pay close attention or worked to fast and ended up with nothing. But for everyone, it was a terrific learning experience that they will always remember.

This has been a contribution by Brandon and Grace Gloor. For more on the summer Hope in Haiti trip, and to learn about Brandon and Grace’s ministry, check out our blog at ntm.org/brandon_gloor