Travel Mercies Are Free!

Dear Readers,
Thanks so much to those of you who offered words of encouragement after my last post! It's so nice to know you are loved, and I love you right back!

While I was in the throws of last weekend's misadventure, I heard myself using this phrase over and over as I explained to curious passers by what a travel mercy was: "It's more of a ministry than a business." I realized then that my making and sharing of Travel Mercies should not be a business at all. After all,
     The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
     His mercies never cease.

     Great is his faithfulness;

     his mercies begin afresh each morning.

       - Lamentations 3:22-23, New Living Translation; http://biblehub.com/nlt/lamentations/3.htm

 

Why was I ever trying to sell a Travel Mercy, a reminder of how much God loves each of us? I've remarked previously how much joy and get from making and giving Travel Mercies (everything I crochet for that matter); why would I ever try to put a price on that?

 

During the second downpour at the craft fair, a couple of families with small children decided to take refuge under our tent. One was a mom with four kids, I'm guessing ages 0-7, and the other was a mother and her daughter who was also probably about 7.

 

Although everyone was behaving well, they were obviously a bit anxious and ready to move on, but before they did, I declared, "Everyone stuck in our tent during the rain gets a free Travel Mercy!" The urchins excitedly swarmed my table, each looking for one in his or her favorite color. With over 125 in my inventory, there was no danger of someone's favorite color not being represented! The three older siblings had no trouble, and I selected a green one for the baby, giving it to the mom for safekeeping.

 

The little girl with her mom selected a yellow one that I had not yet finished, so I was able to more fully explain what a Travel Mercy was and tell her how much God loves her as I put the eyes on and completed the back side. It wasn't quite the Build-a-Bear workshop, but it was at least a positive shared experience. In fact, it was undoubtedly the highlight of my day!

 

I firmly believe that it's OK to fail at something as long as you learn something in the process, and I learned a great deal at this craft fair about what makes me happy and how God wants to use my Travel Mercy ministry. Therefore, here are my new rules of engagement:

 

1. Travel Mercies are free. If I have a Travel Mercy, I'll give it to you. If I don't have it, I'll make it. I've tried to give them to people in the past who have insisted on giving me some money. I will still take these contributions as their sharing in this ministry. That money helps pay for supplies, and who am I to deny them the joy of sharing? If I decide to do any more craft fairs or community events, I'll take whatever Travel Mercies I have, but most of them will be unfinished. I want the opportunity to witness to people for a few minutes instead of letting them just grab and go.

 

2. I will seek out opportunities to donate my crocheted creations for the Glory of God. For example, I recently crocheted a pink jellyfish that I have donated to the silent auction for my son's school (I entitled it "Slinky Pinky - The Breast Cancer Fighting Jellyfish"). The auction is tonight; I'll let you know how it goes. I have also volunteered to make six centerpieces for one of the holiday parties at work. With each of these opportunities, I will leave my business card which will direct people to this blog. I hope they visit and learn a little bit about how much God loves them.

 

3. I will continue to crochet things for our family's personal collection of creatures. My wife is the biggest source of encouragement I have (she bought a display case for my creations) and the most important person in my life. If I'm going to use so much of my time in this ministry, the least I can do is make some stuff for her as a small token of my gratitude.

 

4. Regardless of where they eventually go, I will continue to make things I think are cool. I think God is using my skills for a special purpose, so I will follow His leading, and when I feel inspired, I'm just going to go with it. I really like the custom garlands I've been making out of eyelash yarn. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with what I've made, but I'm sure I'll think of something...

 

So, that's it in a nutshell! If you don't have one and would like a Travel Mercy, please email me your name, address, and specifications about what you want (color, size, level of fuzziness, etc.) to mdkeihl@verizon.net. I can't promise speedy delivery, but eventually you'll receive a package in the mail.

 

All I ask is that you let me know what you did with it. What did you name it? Where did you take it? Did you give it away? Did you use it to minister to someone in need? If nothing exciting happened with your Travel Mercy, make something up; I would love to know what imaginary adventures they have, especially from little kids. Please take a picture and send it my way.

 

Most importantly, if someone asks you what it is, please explain it as best you can and direct them to this blog where they can learn how to make one or email me and ask for one of their own.

 

Thanks for sharing in this ministry, and until next time, be blessed!

Matt

 

PS - Here's a picture of my friend Pam on vacation with her Travel Mercies. I would love to have pictures like this from you with yours!

 

 

Adventures in Arts & Crafts

First of all, my humblest apologies to all (or should I say both?) of you who, having enjoyed reading my first 4 posts, have waited these many weeks for #5... Wait no longer! You see, I have been building my inventory of Travel Mercies and other stuff to populate my booth at the 38th annual Hickam Air Force Base Fall Craft Fair which was yesterday.

Before I tell you how the craft fair went, let me tell you about my experience to date with the sponsor, the Hickam Arts & Crafts Center. In short, they're pretty cool! They have lots of fun things to do, a friendly, encouraging staff, and a great facility to help you express your talents in painting, woodworking, sculpting, etc., and my personal favorite, the fiber arts. You can check them out at greatlifehawaii.com under the "Leisure" tab.

When I was still recovering from my shoulder surgery, I spent some time there hanging out with some fellow crocheters and knitters. They have a "yarn baller" I used for a couple of hours trying to convert an earlier garage sale purchase from a trash bag full of disorganized yarn to nice, orderly cylinders that would fit in my cupboard. That's when I learned about the Art Show.

From 1 Oct 13 to some time in January 2014, the Hickam Arts & Craft Center is sponsoring an art show in their facility. Artists were allowed to submit 3 pieces that will remain on display during this time. I submitted pieces entitled "Michelle's Squid," "Christopher's Caterpillar," and "Clayton's Octopus." You'll hear their stories in a later blog.

Here's a picture of my with my work at the reception on 16 Oct. I'm the one on the left...

Although the reception was free and open to the public (they had great food, by the way!), pretty much everyone we saw there either worked at the Arts & Craft Center or had works on display or was a friend/family member of someone who had works on display. Just as my friend Rebecca (whose son Ethan is a photographer) were noting the lack of "public," the very next people we talked to had nothing on display. Very funny, God!

The most important thing I learned that night was this: kids like my creations. Although I didn't spend much of the evening hanging around my own work, I was able to notice from across the room that whenever little kids came in, they gravitated to my shelf. Any why not? It's in their reach, and it has three stuffed animals on it. Too bad they weren't allowed to touch them (which would have been fine with me, but the staff said that was a bad idea...). Regardless, seeing children enjoy my work brought me a lot of joy.

Preparing my inventory for the Fall Craft Fair, although time-consuming, also brought me a lot of joy! Once I had a sufficient number of Travel Mercies (I think I had around 125), my creative process turned to the Christmas season, and I started experimenting with custom-making garland, tree skirts, and tree stars for small trees. Here are some of them.

I see some real potential here, especially for those who would like to celebrate the holiday using non-traditional colors. My favorite is the "Christmas Island" tree in the middle. Email me if you want to know how I did any of this stuff...

What did NOT bring me a lot of joy was trying to sell my stuff at the craft fair! I was there from 0900-1500, and I only sold 2 Travel Mercies all day! And both of those were to people from work that probably just felt sorry for me. Although I was splitting booth space with Ethan (who did quite well because his photography is AWESOME!!! - http://ethanwhitecottonphotos.smugmug.com/) to save some money, if you count the cost of the materials, my time, the booth, the tent, the tables, the business cards, the ink for the printer, the babysitter, and taking my wife to the movies because we had a babysitter - not to mention all the stuff we're going to buy from Ethan because his photography is AWESOME!!! - the only thing I could do that would be a more epic failure than yesterday would be to run for public office!

It rained fairly hard twice, and it was during the second shower that my silver lining appeared.
What huge lesson did I learn?
What life-changing philosophy emerged?
How am I ever going to make this mountain of lemons into lemonade?

That, my dear reader, is what the next blog will be about.
Until then... God bless and keep you all,
Matt