Hello, dear readers! As one of four Craft Gossip editors who live in Arkansas, I have a unique opportunity to share a story with you. This is an inspirational story of hope, love, faith, and gratitude—and will hopefully inspire you to create beautiful jewelry as well!
Some months ago Craft Gossip sponsored Fork and Talk and invited creative women who blog to come together, try fabulous products from EK Success Brands, but more importantly to network with one another and form new friendships. One of the ladies who attended this event is a dear friend to the four Arkansas Craft Gossip editors. I’d like to introduce you now to our friend, Debbie Nelson, through this story that aired recently in response to the loss of her home to fire:
KATV news story about Debbie Nelson.
As you can see in this video, Debbie has gone through many more hardships than just the loss of her home. Her family has overcome grave illness and terrible loss. Despite it all, Debbie and Richard remain hopeful, loving, and full of gratitude for the blessings in their lives. You would be hard-pressed to find a more kind and grateful person than Debbie, whose bywords are, “God is good. And he is good all the time.”
Today, I humbly ask you to consider offering a helping hand to the Nelsons. In addition to losing her crafting supplies, which Denise is seeking help to replace through gift card donations on the Needlework blog, Debbie also lost her collection of awareness jewelry for breast cancer and cystic fibrosis. As a breast cancer survivor and the mother of a beautiful daughter lost much too young to cystic fibrosis, these pieces were among Debbie’s most cherished jewelry.
That is where you, dear jewelry-making readers, enter this inspirational story! I am asking you to help Debbie replace some of these treasured pieces that were lost. Symbols of her Christian faith, symbols for breast cancer awareness and cystic fibrosis awareness, charms for faith, hope, belief, and love are among the many things lost.
To show my appreciation to you, dear readers, each person with an US mailing address who sends a piece of jewelry for Debbie will be entered in a special giveaway of 10 books from my personal library (see inset photo above). The deadline to enter this drawing is April 1, 2012. Mail entries to Stacie Hooder, 6209 Allwood Drive, N Little Rock AR 72118, USA. You can also make a tax-deductible donation via PayPal by logging into your account and using the “Send Money” tab to send any amount to NelsonFireFund@yahoo.com. Or you can mail donations to Nelson Fire Fund, Fellowship North Church, 1 East 52nd Place, North Little Rock, AR 72116, USA.
Debbie has taught me many lessons about gratitude, kindness, and compassion. I owe her a debt of gratitude for being such a wonderful friend and a shining example of the goodness in humanity in spite of adversity. As Debbie always reminds me, we all get by with a little help from our friends.
Best regards!
Stacie